Preamble

The House being met, the Clerk, at the Table, informed the House of the unavoidable absence, through indisposition, ofMr. SPEAKER from this day's sitting; Whereupon Major MILNER, The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, proceeded to the Table and, after Prayers, took the Chair as DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BUSINESS

COLNE VALLEY WATER BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

MID SOUTHERN UTILITY BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE

Parcels (Damage)

Major Sir Basil Neven-Spence: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is aware of the growing volume of adverse criticism of his Department owing to the damage done to packages transmitted by parcel post; and if he will give orders for greater care to be taken.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Burke): The proportion of parcels damaged is very small and is, in fact smaller today than prewar, though the decrease is in part due to the smaller number of fragile articles today transmitted by post. In the year 1944–45 the number of parcels damaged in the post is estimated at some 120 per million parcels posted, as compared with some 200 per millionin 1938–39. There has been a considerable deterioration in the standard of packing during the last few years owing to the scarcity of paper and other packing materials. Standing instructions are already in force that all postal packets should be handled carefully, and every effort is made to impress their importance on the staff concerned.

Telephone Kiosks (Rural Areas)

Major Hugh Fraser: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether it remains the policy of his Department to construct at Post Office expense public telephone kiosks in districts telephonically remote in reply to representative local requests; and if so, why the Post Office has refused to contemplate erecting a kiosk at Ape Tor in the Stone Division of Staffordshire.

Mr. Burke: The Post Office policy is to provide at its own expense a public telephone kiosk in every village where there is a post office. Where there is no post office, a kiosk is provided if the local authority agrees to pay£4 a year, for a period of five years only, as a small contribution towards the heavy expense involved; and this condition would apply at Ape Tor. Owing to the shortage of labour and materials, it would in any case be impossible to undertake the work for some time to come. There is, however, a public call office within one mile of Ape Tor.

Major Fraser: In view of the need to increase rural amenities, might I ask the Minister whether it will be possible for this very rich public corporation, as the Post Office is, with its many agents scattered throughout the country, to undertake small risks of this sort without having recourse to assistance from local authorities?

Mr. Burke: It is not that this charge is put on for the monetary effect. It is only to give us an indication that the demand is backed up by the local authority. It does not by any means meet the expense of keeping the kiosk.

Sir Wavell Wakefield: Will the Minister see that greater telephone facilities are provided in the Palace of Westminster for Members?

Mr. Burke: That is another question.

Postal Facilities (Europe)

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General when he estimates that prewar mail facilities will be restored between this country and Poland.

Mr. Burke: The letter post to Poland and the printed papers and sample posts


have already been restored, and the resumption of the parcel post is under consideration. As in the case of other European countries the air mail service has been restored on a surcharge basis at the rate of 5d. for the first ounce and 3d. for each additional ounce, postcards 2½d. The restoration of the pre-war speed and frequency of postal communication depends upon the progress made in the restoration of the transport services.

Colonel Stoddart-Scott: Will the Ministersay when he thinks it is likely that the parcel post will be restored?

Mr. Burke: I understand that that concerns another Department, but we hope that it will not be long.

Mr. Peter Freeman: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether he is now in a position to state when general postal facilities will be restored to Austria, Hungary, Germany, Albania and Luxemburg; and, particularly, whether air-mail services will be restored in the immediate future to these countries.

Mr. Burke: As indicated in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Central Southwark (Mr. Martin) on 10th October, general postal communication with Austria and Germany will be resumed as soon as the Allied Control Commissions give authority. I am still not in a position to say when this will be. I hope to be able to announce the resumption of air and surface mail services to Albania and Hungary in the near future. Postal communication with Luxembourg, by air and surface route, has already been restored.

Mr. Freeman: Will special consideration be given to the peculiar position of Austria which is now cut off from practically all contacts with other countries, and to the urgency of restoring these facilities to this country at the earliest possible moment?

Mr. Burke: I understand from the Allied Control Commission that there it is hoped very soon to be able to restore it.

Hospital Camp, Christchurch

Major Sir Jocelyn Lucas: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he is aware that there are 200 repatriated prisoners of war in a hospital camp at Christchurch,

New Zealand; that they have received no news from home since September, 1944; and whether the letters and cables which relatives were instructed to send to Melbourne will now be forwarded.

Mr. Burke: Correspondence for liberated prisoners of war is sent on as received, and I am informed that a considerable volume of mail from home has been received by liberated prisoners of war now in New Zealand within three weeks of the date of posting. I am making special inquiries about the hospital camp at Christchurch referred to, and will write to the hon. and Gallant Member.

Night Telegraph Letter Service

Colonel Erroll: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General when he expects to re-introduce the night telegraph letter service.

Mr. Burke: In spite of appeals to the public to telegraph less, the telegraph service is still carrying 40 per cent. more telegrams than before the war; and the staffing position, particularly during the later hours of the day when night telegraph letters were generally handed in, does not permit of the re-introduction of this service at present. It will be re-introduced as soon as possible.

Colonel Erroll: Does the Minister realise that though the numbers represented are very small, before the war this service was of great value? Could he give us an assurance that he will re-introduce it as soon as possible?

Mr. Burke: Yes, I said that, but I would point out that the numbers had increased, at the time when this service was terminated, from 200,000 per year to 400,000.

Mr. H. Hynd: Can the Minister say whether this increase of 40 per cent. includes official telegrams?

Mr. Burke: I cannot answer that question without notice, but this increased traffic had to be dealt with.

Captain Crookshank: In view of the fact that the Assistant Postmaster-General has once again referred to the shortages of staff, is he aware that he will have the full support of us all in pressing for speedier demobilisation?

High Bentham

Captain Drayson: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if he will provide facilities for the issue of motor licences and petrol coupons at High Bentham post office, as the 2,500 members of this parish, which is situated in the centre of a large agricultural area, are put to in convenience by having to make special journeys to neighbouring towns for this purpose.

Mr. Burke: Yes. Sir; I am arranging accordingly, but certain preliminaries will be necessary before the facilities can be made available.

Research Workers

Mr. Cobb: asked the Assistant Post master-General the total number of persons employed by the Post Office on 30th June, 1937 and 1945, respectively; and what proportion of these were physicists or qualified engineers engaged on pure research and applied research respectively.

Mr. Burke: The total number of full-time Post Office staff was 221,171 in 1937, and 233,236 in 1945. Of these, 42,056 and 43,820 respectively were employed in the Engineering Department. The Post Office does not undertake pure research. Applied research cannot be clearly distinguished from the highly technical development work carried out at engineering department Headquarters; the number of physicists and qualified engineers employed on these classes of work was 405 in 1937, and 387 in 1945.

Mr. Cobb: Can the Minister say whether he thinks that this paucity of research workers is satisfactory and that he will be able to increase the number in the near future?

Mr. Burke: I think that is very likely.

Telephones (Wrong Numbers)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General if a record is kept by his Department of all telephone wrong numbers, or only those reported by callers.

Mr. Burke: It is impracticable for the Post Office to record wrong numbers unless they are reported by subscribers, but a sample record is kept from which it is possible to assess the percentage of calls which fail, and the causes of failure.

Mr. Driberg: Was it on that sample that the apparently reassuring percentages were based which my hon. Friend gave the House the other day?

Mr. Burke: Yes, it was on that sample, which is taken continuously over a very wide field, the whole of the year round, and provides us with a figure which we believe is substantially correct.

Mr. Gallacher: Is a record made of the remarks passed by callers?

Mr. Burke: The Post Office does not listen in.

House of Commons (Members' Letters)

Sir Waldron Smithers: asked the Assistant Postmaster-General whether, now that the new House of Commons post office is provided with a pigeonhole for each Member, hon. Members may be permitted to hand in letters to their fellow Members without being under the obligation to affix the appropriate stamps.

Mr. Burke: This raises the question of free postage, and as such will fall to be considered by the Select Committee on hon. Members' expenses.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL INSURANCE

Widows' and Old Age Pensions

Mr. George Brown: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will inquire into the case of Mrs. George, of Riddings, Derbyshire, who has been refused a widow's pension on the grounds that her husband's contributions were wrongfully accepted and at the same time has been refused a refund of those contributions; and will he remedy this in justice.

The Minister of National Insurance (Mr. James Griffiths): Mr. George died in 1935 and his widow's application for pension was rejected by the independent Referee in January, 1936. The question of a refund of wrongly paid contributions, less benefit received in respect of them, would normally have been dealt with at the time, and my hon. Friend will appreciate that it is difficult to re-open it after so long an interval, but I am having some further inquiries made.

Mr. G. Brown: While thanking my right hon. Friend for the latter part of his


reply, may I ask him whether he does not feel that a very severe injustice is being done here, and will he speedily come to some conclusion about it?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I will do my very best to expedite the inquiries we are making.

Mrs. Jean Mann: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he will state the number of persons qualifying and drawing the maximum benefits of the supplementary old age pension; the number whose benefit is reduced because of means test; and the amount by which pension for a couple is reduced because of a working son or daughter whose earnings do not exceed£3 per week.

Mr. J. Griffiths: As supplementary pensions are adjusted to the need of the individual there is no amount which can be said to be the maximum benefit, but in rather less than two-thirds of the 1,400,000 supplementary pensions payable at the end of September, covering the needs of about 1,600,000 pensioners, the supplementary pension was assessed on the basis that the applicant had no resources, other than the main pension, to be taken into account. In the remaining one-third there was some reduction on account of such resources. Where one of a couple is the householder an earning son or daughter in the household will be assumed to be making a contribution towards household expenses of not more than 7s. a week; which will be reduced to 5s. for earnings between 30s. and 55s. a week; to 2s. 6d. for earnings between 20s. and 30s. a week and to nothing for earnings of 20s. or less.

Mrs. Mann: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware the Area Assistance Boards are paying 47½ per cent. increase on the standard rent on houses of old age supplementary pensioners which have been listed as un fit for human habitation; and if he will advise them to pay the legal rent and leave the surplus with the tenant.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I understand that the fact that a house is listed as unfit for human habitation does not in itself justify the withholding of the increases to which my hon. Friend refers and that if the tenant wishes to withhold part of the rent he must apply to the local authority for

the necessary certificate. I am, however, bound to point out that if the amount of rent is reduced in this way, the Board would have no alternative but to make a corresponding reduction in the rent allowance.

Captain Prescott: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether he is aware that there is considerable delay by his Department in dealing with applications for the grant of widows' and old age pensions; and what steps are being taken to remedy this position.

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am aware that owing to an increased number of claims, coupled with loss of temporary staff, the time taken to settle applications for widows' and old age pensions has recently been longer than under normal conditions. Measures have been taken to meet the situation by recruiting new staff specially for this work.

Wales (Administration)

Mr. P. Freeman: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether, when arranging for a central Welsh office for the administration of the new Social Insurance scheme, he will, in view of its accessibility to all parts of the Principality of Wales, consider the claims of Newport and avoid the congestion of all Government Departments in one town.

Mr. J. Griffiths: The main body of my staff in Wales is now in offices at Cardiff, and I see no sufficient reason at present for contemplating a change in that respect.

Unemployment

Mr. Daggar: asked the Minister of National Insurance whether, in view of the increased cost of living, it is proposed to increase the rate of unemployment benefit or the supplementary payments made by the Assistance Board; and whether it is proposed to abolish the means test as now applied to the unemployed.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Unemployment benefit will be one of the provisions dealt with in the National Insurance Bill which I hope to present to the House in the near future, and I cannot now make an announcement in anticipation of the presentation of that Bill.

Mr. Daggar: Can we have an assurance that when that Bill is introduced provision will be made for the complete abolition of the means test?

Mr. J. Griffiths: The Bill will make provision for benefits for unemployment, sickness and other things, and those benefits will be basic benefits to which no test will be applied.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to an article in the "Evening Standard" written by the Parliamentary Private Secretary of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer which appears to indicate what are the ultimate figures they have in mind, and will he say whether that article contained official information?

Mr. J. Griffiths: I am afraid that I have not seen the article in question.

Lieut.-Commander Gurney Braithwaite: Is it not desirable that all those in the Government entourage should refrain from these journalistic activities?

Mr. Stokes: Your lot did not.

Oral Answers to Questions — METROPOLITAN POLICE

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Depart-

NUMBER OF OFFICERS IN THE METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE WHO HAVE COMPLETED 26 YEARS SERVICE AND ARE ELIGIBLE, UNDER THE POLICE ACT, 1890, TO RECEIVE ON RETIREMENT THE MAXIMUM PENSION.


Constables.
Sergeants.
Station Sergeants.
Inspectors.
Sub-Divisional Inspectors.
Chief Inspectors.
Superintendents.
Chief Constables.


210
50
26
18
5
9
18
9




C.I.D.



Constables.
2nd Class Sergeants.
1st Class Sergeants.
Inspectors 2nd Class.
Inspectors 1st Class.

Superintendents.




3
4
2
1
4

7



Totals
213
54
28
19
9
9
25
9

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the financial loss incurred in the Metropolitan police food service each year since 1939; and how this deficit has been made good.

ment if, in view of the shortage of policemen in London, he will take steps to secure release from the Army of policemen with up to 10 years' experience who, having been transferred from the R.A.F., are now being treated as gunner recruits and wish to return to civilian police employment.

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Ede): Steps have already been taken to ensure that these men are included in the arrangements for the early release of police officers.

Mr. Stewart: Would my right hon. Friend consider this as a special case?

Mr. Ede: If the hon. Gentleman has a particular case in mind I will be very pleased to consider it if he will let me have the details.

Mr. W. J. Brown: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many men in each group of the Metropolitan police force have completed their contractual term of service and are eligible to receive on retirement the maximum pension.

Mr. Ede: As the answer is entirely statistical, I am circulating the figures in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Following is the answer:

Mr. Ede: The excess expenditure over receipts in the provision of catering services for the Metropolitan Police Service during the six years of war has averaged approximately£100,000 per annum, and this has been met from the Metropolitan


Police Fund. I am satisfied that this expenditure was fully justified in the interests of the health and efficiency of the members of the force.

Oral Answers to Questions — FIRE WARNINGS, TOWCESTER

Mr. Manningham-Buller: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the opinion expressed by the local authority and the other means of communication available, he will give instructions that air raid warning sirens shall not be used by the N.F.S. in the town of Towcester, for the purpose of calling out retained firemen.

Mr. Ede: It is not proposed to use the warning, but the "raiders passed" signal. I am not able to accept the suggestion that the means of communication already available are adequate to secure prompt attendance of the firemen when they are required, but before the siren is brought into use steps will be taken by the fire force commander to ensure that the public are aware of the significance of the signal.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for that reply, may I ask him whether he is aware that all these retained firemen are on the telephone, that most of them work, in the day-time, where the siren cannot be heard, in a factory where they are normally summoned by telephone, and is not this another stupid and senseless example of the domination of democracy by bureaucracy?

Mr. Ede: With regard to the first part of the supplementary question, it is no use relying on the telephone when there is no one at the other end to answer it. Neither would it be reasonable to expect a man's wife, receiving the telephone message, to leave her household duties to proceed to the spot where she thought her husband might be in an effort to find him. I will have the question inquired into as to whether the factory at which these men are employed is within earshot of the warning, because my information is contrary to that of the hon. Member, but the point is material. I hope the answer I have given will show that this matter has received the most careful consideration, and is one of the examples of the way in which democracy and bureaucracy can helpfully co-operate.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the practice of summoning them by telephone worked absolutely satisfactorily in pre-war years, and under other Governments?

Mr. Ede: I am not aware of that. I have indicated that I will inquire into the detailed information which the hon. Gentleman has placed at my disposal.

Oral Answers to Questions — ALIENS

British Wives

Mrs. Ayrton Gould: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, at an early date, he will make provision for British women who married aliens before 1931 to regain their British nationality.

Mr. P. Freeman: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is his intention to introduce legislation to secure the rights of those women married to aliens to maintain their own nationality, if desired, on marriage.

Mr. Thomas Reid: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he intends to introduce legislation by which a British subject marrying a male alien would not thereby lose her nationality, and by which an alien marring a male British subject would not thereby acquire British nationality.

Mr. Ede: I regret I am not in a position to make a statement on this subject. As I have previously stated, the nationality law affects the status of British subjects in all parts of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and it is essential that before changes are made there should be consultation with the Dominions.

Mrs. Gould: Is the Home Secretary aware that a number of British women are suffering great hardship for no offence other than that they married before 1933, and in those circumstances will he do his best to speed up the machinery for the alteration of the law?

Mr. Ede: I do not regard marriage, before or after any date, as an offence. I am aware that a number of women do suffer very considerable hardships in this matter, and I am hoping that as a result of a move which has been made in one Dominion I may be able to speed up consideration of this very important matter.

Mr. Freeman: Will my right hon. Friend receive a deputation on this matter and give it further consideration?

Mr. Ede: If the deputation could give me any fresh information, I should as always be willing to receive it, but if it is merely to repeat statements that are well known, I hope my hon. Friend will believe that I am fully informed and I have the utmost sympathy with the desire that this state of things should be brought to an end.

Miss Rathbone: Is it necessary to wait upon the action or assent of two of the Dominions, one of them being Eire, to whom we have no special reasons for showing gratitude? Could not the Government give a lead in this matter and take their own action?

Mr. Ede: I think the subject of British nationality is one that must be considered by all the self-governing nations which have a right to be considered in the matter. I should be very reluctant to give any indication that I regarded this as a matter that could be settled by unilateral action.

Naturalisation

Mr. Haydn Davies: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will now make his promised statement on the re-opening of naturalisation.

Sir J. Lucas: asked the Secreatary of State for the Home Department if he is aware that Pre-war Austrian refugees from Nazi oppression, who have served in the Armed Forces throughout the war and are due to be demobilised, woll then be classified as enemy aliens; and whether he will now give these men an opportunity of becoming British subjects.

Mr. Ede: I will, with Mr. Deputy-Speaker's permission, make a statement at the end of Questions.

Later—

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir. In considering this question His Majesty's Government have had it prominently in mind that among the people who at the present time desire to become British subjects there are many who not only have become assimilated to our ways of life and have the statutory qualifications in respect of residence, knowledge of the language and character, but have special claims to be admitted to

British citizenship. Some have served in His Majesty's Forces and have earned their share of the gratitude which we all feel to the fighting services. Others have contributed in civilian capacities to the war effort, including many who have rendered valuable help as scientists and technicians. Others again are contributing to our national strength and prosperity in various fields, including those who in the fields of commerce and industry are providing employment and assisting trade, especially our export trade.
It is accordingly specially desirable to bring to an end the suspension which was imposed in 1940 on the investigation of applications for naturalisation, to resume this work as quickly as possible and to accelerate as far as may be practicable the granting of naturalisation certificates in all proper cases.
The flow of applications having been checked for five years, the volume which has now accumulated is so large that if those who have special claims to consideration are to be dealt with without undue delay, there must be a policy of giving priority to certain classes of applicants. Amongst the varied classes of applicants those whom I have already mentioned stand out as deserving special attention. If an applicant not only has the qualities ordinarily expected of a good citizen but has also given good service in the Forces of the Crown, or has made a substantial contribution in some civilian capacity to the war effort, or is by his business or profession making a substantial contribution to the economic welfare of the nation, his application for naturalisation has a special claim to attention.
The number of applicants who will be genuinely entitled on these grounds to priority is large, but the number is still larger of those persons who will think that they deserve priority and will make out an apparently good prima faciecase in support of their claims. To prevent time and effort which ought at this stage to be devoted to the first class of applications, being spent on the investigation of applications which turn out after inquiry to belong to the second class, will not be easy. To assist the Home Office to pick out readily those applications which are most likely to be found on investigation to be genuinely deserving of priority, if will be necessary to require applicants or certain classes of applicants to submit, in


a convenient and effective form, evidence in support of their claims to priority. The machinery which will be required to give effect to this policy will be settled as quickly as possible and an announcement will be made as to the procedure for submitting claims to prior consideration. In the meantime prospective applicants should not lodge their applications in my Department: premature applications and inquiries about the progress of applications already made will merely impede the official machine.
At the time when the suspension of naturalisation was announced—on 20th November, 1940—there were already lodged in the Home Office about 6,500 applications. These applicants must have had in 1940 at least five years' previous residence in this country and, but for the war, their applications would have been disposed of long ago. There is, therefore, a strong case for giving early attention to these 6,500 cases. It has, however, been decided that the consideration of these applications shall not prevent work being started at an early date on other applications from those who have valid claims to prior attention on the grounds which I have mentioned.
It will, I am sure, be generally agreed that the high privilege of British citizenship should not be conferred rashly and without adequate investigations. Whatever steps, therefore, may be taken to accelerate the procedure for dealing with the great number of applications, including both those which have already been lodged and those which will flood into the Department as soon as the further announcement is made, this point will be borne in mind and consequently the work will have to be spread over a comparatively lengthy period. No pains, however, will be spared to make the machinery for dealing with this task as effective as possible in the light of the considerations just mentioned.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: I understand the Home Secretary to say that those who had served in the Forces would have priority, but I did not understand him to say that if they had served in the Forces it would entitle them to dispense with certain qualifications as to residence which otherwise apply to people desiring naturalisation. Can he tell the House whether that is so or not?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. The hon. Member's theory was perfectly accurate.

Mrs. Middleton: Will the Home Secretary take into consideration the fact that the categories to which he has alluded will rule out a great number of very desirable women applicants, and will he consider taking action to remedy this?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir. I hope that before my hon. Friend makes up her mind as to the exact import of this answer, she will read it carefully when she sees it in the Official Report. I cannot, at the moment, undertake any extension of the categories I have mentioned.

Mr. Eden: The right hon. Gentleman will understand that the statement was not easy to follow; it covers a most important issue. I think we on this side of the House agree with his definition of the importance of any extension of British citizenship to anyone. May I ask the Leader of the House whether, when we have had an opportunity to consider this important statement, he can, perhaps, try to afford an opportunity for some discussion on it?

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): Perhaps that might be raised through the usual channels, and we will see what can be done.

Miss Rathbone: Will the Home Secretary say whether, when he rightly promises priority to those who have served in the Armed Forces, he is including the Armed Forces of our Allies? He will remember that the previous Prime Minister held out, especially to Poles, the prospect that they would be given naturalisation if they did not wish to return to their own country. Would that also apply to other Allies?

Mr. Ede: That question has been put quite recently to the Prime Minister. The statement I have made today must be read in the light of his answer.

Mr. Piratin: Will the Home Secretary recall that after the last war arrangements were made whereby those aliens who had served in the British Forces were allowed to obtain naturalisation at reduced charges? Will he make similar arrangements after this war?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I think the circumstances are rather different from those which obtained after the last war.

Mr. McGovern: Will those indivdiuals who made application before the suspension in November, 1940, be considered first?

Mr. Ede: No, I hope to be able to consider them and some of the people in the Services, whom I have mentioned, simultaneously. The situation during recent years makes it very desirable that we should not say that no one else shall be considered until the 6,500 have been disposed of.

Mr. Driberg: May I ask my right hon. Friend if he will say that men who have served in the Forces will be allowed to stay in this country after demobilisation, during the inevitably long waiting period, and will not be compulsorily repatriated?

Mr. Ede: I hope my hon. Friend will put that question down before he expects an answer.

Mr. Eden: May I again ask the Leader of the House a question? There are many of us who would like to ask a number of questions on this issue; there are all sorts of cases which we all have in mind. It would simplify matters if the Government would do their best to arrange a Debate, not necessarily a whole day, at an early date, instead of our putting questions now before we have had time to consider the statement.

Mr. H. Morrison: I will consider that through the usual channels, but I cannot on the spur of the moment, when a statement is made by a Minister, give an under taking that it will be debated—

Mr. Eden: It is a rather important statement.

Mr. Morrison: It may be, but I can only say that we shall be willing to consider it through the usual channels.

Sir J. Lucas: Might these men who have served in the Forces be allowed to have stamped on their identity cards "Have served with H.M.'s Forces"? Otherwise they are classed as enemy aliens. If they have that stamped on their cards it will help them.

Mr. Ede: It would not alter their status, even if it were stamped on their identity

cards, but if it is on the basis that it is recognised that it does not alter their status, I will consider what is possible. That must not be taken as an indication that I can give way on the point.

Oral Answers to Questions — WINSON GREEN PRISON

Mr. Shurmer: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department in view of the series of attacks made on warders in Winson Green prison during recent months, what steps he is taking to see that as soon as possible this prison is adequately staffed.

Mr. Ede: Apart from an attack last month on an escort in a bus, during an attempt at escape by prisoners who were being taken from the prison to Stafford, the only attack on prison officers at this prison in recent months occurred on 7th November, when two officers were assaulted simultaneously from behind in one of the shops. Steps are being taken to bring those who are believed to be responsible for the assault before the Visiting Committee on disciplinary charges. Neither of these incidents is due in any way to under-staffing. The prison is adequately staffed by present-day standards, and, even if the staff were larger, there would have been no greater number of officers present when these incidents occurred.

Mr. Shurmer: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the statement about under-staffing was made by the chairman of the visiting justices the morning after the attack?

Mr. Ede: No, Sir, I was not aware of that, and it does not coincide with the information I have obtained from the prison.

Mr. W. J. Brown: Is the Home Secretary aware that there is not a prison in Britain today which is not grossly understaffed, and is he not aware that the recent increase in the assaults on prison staff is a direct outcome of the policy of his Department in that matter?

Mr. Ede: I was very careful in the wording of this answer to refer to present day standards. I think it is common knowledge that the standard is less than the pre-war standard. As staff becomes available, the staff will be brought up to the pre-war standard, but I am satisfied


that with the difficulties that confront them the present staff are working loyally, and the information I get in reply to my inquiries is that the number of assaults has not risen as a result of the present shortage.

Earl Winterton: Is not the whole matter mixed up with question of pay and conditions in the prison service, which the right hon. Gentleman knows, without my giving away any confidences, have been the subject of very careful consideration by Home Secretaries for years past, and is he prepared in the near future to make some statement on what steps are being taken to improve those conditions?

Mr. Ede: I have the question of pay and allowances before me. An improvement might possibly assist in the matter of getting staff, but I do not think a prisoner assaults a badly paid officer more than he would assault a better paid one.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. Lang.

Earl Winterton: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I have called the next Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — BORSTAL INSTITUTIONS

Mr. Lang: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department what educational facilities are made available to Borstal boys recently transferred to Dart moor.

Mr. Ede: Arrangements have been made for 14 classes, covering a wide field, to be taken by members of the staff. The Educational Advisor to the prison has also been asked to help in arranging for the attendance of some professional teachers, and an approach has been made to the National Adult Schools Committee and the British Institute of Technology with a view to providing correspondence courses.

Mr. Lang: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the detestable environment in which these boys are now and give them additional facilities so that they may overcome the environment and, if possible, the stigma?

Mr. Ede: I do not accept any of the implications contained in the supplementary question.

Mr. Sidney Shephard: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the suggestion that the name of the prison should be changed, in view of the fact that it is now to be a Borstal establishment?

Mr. Ede: I have considered that, and I am consulting the Prison Commissioners and others about it. I am not yet in a position to announce a decision.

Earl Winterton: Is the right hon. Gentleman now satisfied that the conditions in the educational sense are such that it is possible to obtain the extra staff required for this prison?

Mr. Ede: I am not quite sure what is meant by educational sense, but the announcement I have made this afternoon is one that will be carried out, and it is, I think, adequate to the present requirements of the institution.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many gentlemen engaged in education in that neighbourhood have for years gone to great trouble in helping in the education there, and deserve the thanks of the Home Office?

Mr. Ede: I am well aware of that, and I hope that now we are sending them a younger and possibly more impressionable type of person to teach, their efforts will be increased.

Mr. Lang: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many lads are now in prisons awaiting transfer to Borstal institutions, and the average time of such waiting.

Mr. Ede: On 12th November there were 540 youths in local prisons awaiting removal to the allocation centre at Wormwood Scrubs, where they are examined and allocated to the particular Borstal institution which seems most appropriate to the particular case, and 270 youths at the allocation centre. The average period for which youths have been detained in local prisons during recent months before allocation is 16 weeks, and they spend on an average about seven weeks in the allocation centre.

Mr. Lang: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is often an additional period in which these people are detained before trial and sentence, and will he consider whether some system of


boarding out on farms, or something of that sort, could be carried out?

Mr. Ede: I am examining all possible means of reducing these periods.

Mr. Silverman: Can my right hon. Friend say whether there is really any good reason why, during these waiting periods, the boys should not be sent home?

Mr. Ede: Yes, Sir. In certain cases, I regret to say, the home has not been very helpful to the lad or he would not have been in the position in which he is. I desire to get the lads into the Borstal institution as quickly as I possibly can.

Major Bruce: Will my right hon. Friend consider releasing on licence some of those who are already in the institution and have shown themselves capable of living at home under supervision?

Mr. Ede: Any of these youths can qualify for such a remission by good conduct and response to the treatment of the institution, but in the early days of the war, when a number of these youths were released on licence earlier than in the judgment of the institution they would normally have been, the fact was severely commented upon by some of His Majesty's judges and chairmen of Quarter Sessions. Wherever a lad shows that he has reached a position in which he can return to the life of a normal citizen, opportunities of doing so are afforded him.

Sir Robert Young: Is the Minister aware that a lack of conveyances in rural areas may account for the number of lads being retained in prison instead of being transferred to Borstal institutions?

Mr. Ede: No, it is a far more serious question than one of a lack of conveyances.

Oral Answers to Questions — JUVENILE COURTS

Mr. Sargood: asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will inquire into the case of Mr. Gordon Fellowes, who claims to have resigned from a£700 a year post as welfare officer under the London County Council in protest against the present system of dealing with children brought before the juvenile courts, and to have made a recording of a conversation between the police, a young

girl and her mother, and to have been visited by the police and by an official of his Department; and whether he has any statement to make.

Mr. Ede: I have seen the newspaper reports referred to. Fellowes has since been seen by the police and has admitted that the statements which he made to the Press are untrue. He has been from time to time employed temporarily by the London County Council in subordinate capacities, but not as a welfare officer or at any salary approaching£700 a year; he had made no recording of any conversation between the police and a young girl, nor had he been visited by a Home Office official or prior to his statement by the police. As these mischievous statements have received a certain amount of publicity, I am obliged to my hon. Friend for giving me an opportunity of refuting them.

Mrs. Mann: May I ask the Minister if, otherwise, the details of the Question are correct?

Mr. Ede: I believe the first seven or eight words are quite accurate.

Oral Answers to Questions — PENSIONS AND GRANTS

Mr. Cobb: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he is aware that some officers and other ranks, pensioners of the last war, were unable to draw their pensions during this war on account of their being in enemy hands or living in occupied territory and that the accumulated pension has, in some cases, been in the hands of the Government for five years; and if he will have compound interest paid on these sums to these pensioners.

The Minister of Pensions (Mr. Wilfred Paling): I am aware of the position referred to by the hon. Member and have arranged for these, arrears to be disbursed as and when it becomes practicable. I regret, however, that I can see no grounds for the proposal in the last part of the Question.

Mr. Cobb: Is my hon. Friend aware that pensioners in the Channel Islands have had to wait up to five years and three months for their pensions, and that, in the meantime, they have had to sell their household goods in order to live?

Mr. Shurmer: asked the Minister of Pensions if, in view of the hardships caused to wives and children of servicemen killed whilst on leave, he will consider taking steps to amend the Royal Warrant to cover such cases.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: The basic principle governing the award of a war pension to the widow and children of a member of the Forces is that death must have been due to war service. This criterion is not satisfied in the case of a man killed on leave inasmuch as his death cannot be related to the compulsions of service.

Mr. Shurmer: I asked the Minister whether he will consider amending the Royal Warrant. Does he not know the hardship that has been caused throughout the country to wives and children of men killed whilst on leave. Are they not on duty for the whole time of their leave, and will he amend the Royal Warrant so that their wives and children shall be entitled to a pension?

Mr. Paling: The Royal Warrant was amended, to a large extent, a short time ago, and a man is covered now up to the time he actually enters his home and from the time when he leaves his home to go back to the Service. During the time that he is home on leave he is considered to be his own master and is not covered for that period.

Major Guy Lloyd: Are the Government prepared, as the Prime Minister hinted soon after taking office, to consider the whole question of the Royal Warrant with a view to revision?

Mr. Paling: The Royal Warrant is under review generally.

Mr. Garry Allighan: asked the Minister of Pensions what are the steps that an ex-Serviceman can take to appeal when his pension is reduced from 100 per cent. to 20 per cent. without any medical examination.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: A decision to reduce an award of disability pension granted by my Department is taken only after a complete and full medical examination has shown that there has been sufficient improvement in the pensioner's condition as to justify such a course. If the hon. Member has any particular case in mind I shall be glad to inquire into it.

Major Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Pensions whether he intends to arrange for the grant of pensions to the dependent or partially dependent mothers of men killed on active service to be as of right and payable without a means test.

Mr. Wilfred Paling: As the hon. and gallant Member is no doubt aware, the whole question of war pensions is at present under review, and in these circumstances I am not in a position to make a statement on any particular aspect.

Major Boyd-Carpenter: Will the right hon. Gentleman, in reconsidering the matter, bear in mind what was done after the last war, even if it involves sacrificing the means test?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING

Tenants (Selection)

Major Lloyd: asked the Minister of Health how many local authorities have adopted the points system for selecting house tenants, and how many the ballot system; and whether his Ministry favours some recognised system for the selection of tenants and has brought this to the notice of all local authorities.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Bevan): I regret that statistics are not available. I do not consider that a standard system for the selection of tenants is either desirable or practicable, but I have asked local authorities to give early consideration to the recommendations on this subject made in the recent Report of the Housing Management Sub-Committee of my Central Housing Advisory Committee. A copy of the report is being sent to the hon. Member.

Land Acquisition

Captain Prescott: asked the Minister of Health how many local authorities have acquired no land for permanent housing sites; and of such local authorities how many have no need at present to make such acquisitions.

Mr. Bevan: At present, 29 local authorities in England and Wales have acquired no land for permanent house sites. I understand that 24 have no present intention of building permanent houses. The position in these areas is being investigated.

Mr. H. Hynd: Will the Minister give us an assurance that these 29 local authorities are dominated by Conservatives?

Mr. Bevan: I do not anticipate that such political considerations will be involved.

Captain Prescott: Is it a fact that, in 24 of these 29 local authorities, they have no need for housing sites at the present moment?

Mr. Bevan: I said that I understand that 29 had no present intention. I am investigating whether their intention bears some relationship to the local circumstances which might justify the authorities.

Northern Ireland

Dr. Little: asked the Minister of Health how many prefabricated houses he is assigning to Northern Ireland and when delivery may be expected.

Mr. Bevan: These matters must be worked out in the light of the date by which sites may be expected to be ready, of commitments in this country, and other factors, on which my officers are in touch with officers in Northern Ireland and I am not at present in a position to make any statement.

Dr. Little: As two requests have been made to the Ministry of Health for an allotment of prefabricated houses from Belfast and Co. Down, how is he going to apportion them?

Mr. Bevan: If my hon. Friend will inquire from the appropriate authorities in Northern Ireland, I think he will find that they are perfectly satisfied with the decisions I have taken on this matter.

Building Workers, London

Mr. Kirby: asked the Minister of Labour how many Liverpool building trades operatives are now employed in London on his direction under the Essential Work Order; and whether such men can now be returned to Liverpool to repair war-damaged houses, and build new ones.

Mr. Isaacs: I am looking into the matter in consultation with my right hon. Friends, the Minister of Works and the Minister of Health, and will write to my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — LONDON AMBULANCE SERVICE

Mr. Hardy: asked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the magnificent services rendered during the war by the London ambulance services and if he is prepared to recognise this service by granting them gratuities or medals similar to the Defence Medal awarded to other services.

Mr. Bevan: I am aware of the most valuable work done by the London Ambulance Service, but it was not a Civil Defence Service and I regret that I cannot accept my hon. Friend's suggestion. It would be impossible to do so without admitting similar claims by many other classes of workers.

Sir J. Lucas: As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Woodford (Mr. Churchill) has said that mortuary attendants will get this Defence Medal, surely the ambulance drivers ought to have it?

Mr. Bevan: I think it would be extremely undesirable to re-open this classification, because there may be very many other applications that would be exceedingly embarrassing to everybody concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions — GOVERNMENT BUILDINGS (LOCAL CONSULTATIONS)

Mr. Stokes: asked the Prime Minister whether he will give instructions to all Departments that before any buildings are put up in any district, consultation will take place both with the local municipal authorities and with the local joint planning committee.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): As far as I am aware Departments do consult the appropriate local authorities before putting up buildings. If my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind where consultation has not taken place, perhaps he will forward details to the Department concerned which will, I am sure, make full investigations.

Mr. Stokes: May I ask the Leader of the House whether his reply means that this instruction is properly understood by the Service Departments, because they are the main offenders, for they take action without consulting the local authority or the local joint planning committee? I should be glad to send him details.

Mr. Morrison: If my hon. Friend will be good enough to do that, I will certainly see that they are investigated.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMANY (REMOVAL OF MACHINERY)

Mr. Horabin: asked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster on what basis the peacetime industrial production of Germany will be assessed in order to arrive at the plant and machinery to be removed from the British zone as reparations; and how far the needs of the European economy for the products of German industry will be taken into account.

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Hynd): These matters are under examination by a Level of Industry Committee which has been set up in Berlin by the Allied Control Council. The committee are guided by the decisions of the Potsdam Conference to the effect broadly that the peacetime production of Germany should be restricted to what is necessary to maintain a living standard not above the average of other European countries and that industries useful for war purposes should be reduced to the minimum consistent with approved peacetime requirements. A considerable proportion of German heavy industry will not be destroyed but transferred to Allied countries whose own industries have been damaged in the war. Germany will, moreover, require imports to maintain her approved standard of living, and will have to pay for these imports by exports which will contribute to the needs of European economy as a whole. The effect of this on the wider issue raised on the second part of the Question is not being overlooked.

Mr. Horabin: Does the reply mean that we intend to carry out the Morgenthau plan in relation to Germany?

Mr. Hynd: Not at all, Sir. The position is, as indicated, that the needs of European economy are very pressing questions in the minds of our Allies, who are concerned in this. Therefore, they will be taken into consideration.

Mr. Stokes: Does my hon. Friend recollect that we could never get any assurance out of the late Government on this particular issue—the implementation of the infamous Morgenthau plan? Will

he categorically inform the House that it is not the intention of His Majesty's Government to allow that to happen?

Mr. Hynd: I can only state that this matter is being dealt with by the Level of Industry Committee which is now in process of reporting. We anticipate that their report will soon be available. The consideration raised in the Question, as I have indicated, will be borne in mind by the Government.

Mr. Horabin: Will the hon. Gentleman make a statement to this House when that report is available?

Mr. Hynd: Obviously, when the conclusions of the report, and the policy arising from the report, are available, it will be the responsibility of the Government so to inform the House.

Oral Answers to Questions — DEMOBILISATION

Detention (Deferment)

Mr. Driberg: asked the Minister of Labour if he will consider modifying the policy of setting Servicemen back one group in the Class A release scheme for every two months that they have spent in detention.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Isaacs): No, Sir. There would be no justification for treating such periods in detention as war service for the purpose of release from the Forces.

Mr. Driberg: Whilst appreciating the point of my right hon. Friend's reply, may I ask if he will bear in mind that he is, in fact, punishing a man twice for the same offence; also, is not the fact that men now continue their military training while in detention justification for treating such periods as war service?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot add to, or vary, the answer I have given.

Mr. Driberg: Think it out again.

Class B Release

Colonel Erroll: asked the Minister of Labour whether the quotas of Class B releases allotted to all Departments have been fully taken up by Servicemen accepting Class B release.

Mr. Isaacs: Sufficient time has not yet elapsed to give the hon. and gallant Member a categorical answer, but I have


no reason to think that the present programme will not be realised owing to the refusal of Servicemen to accept Class B release.

Colonel Erroll: Will the Minister consider increasing the proportion of Class B releases so that we can get more people out of the Services under this scheme?

Mr. Isaacs: Should experience prove that that is advisable, it will be looked at, but I can assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman and other hon. Members, that the Class B releases are catching up, though they have not yet reached the level we want, and we are hopeful that the proportion will be fully reached by the end of this year.

Students

Mr. McKie: asked the Minister of Labour if he will now consider releasing professional students under the Class B scheme, in order that they may complete their broken academic careers.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply given to the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) on 23rd October, a copy of which I am sending him.

Mr. Lindsay: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of the 3,000 students are, in fact, released?

Mr. Isaacs: If the hon. Gentleman will put down that question, I will get him the information.

Dr. Little: Will the Minister consider the grievances of these men who are held up and are wasting their time?

Mr. Isaacs: At the same time we have to consider the grievances of hundreds of other men who are being prevented from taking advantage of other opportunities.

Mr. Harold Sutcliffe: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many of these men will be approaching 30 years of age by the time they are able to qualify, and will he give this whole question further consideration?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot promise that it will have further consideration; it has been considered so very often. This is part of a scheme that fits into all other sections, and as soon as you remove the apparent injustice to one, you put a real injustice upon a dozen others.

Mr. Scollan: Will the Minister take into consideration the number of young men who have obtained their honours degrees in arts, and who are not being asked for by education committees or authorities, and who are not eligible under Class B? Will he do something to release these young men and give them a chance in life after getting their degrees?

Mr. Isaacs: I cannot see how that arises out of this question, but if the hon. Member wants information he has the usual method for obtaining it.

Mr. Scollan: I have already used it by asking a question of the Minister, and I would like an answer.

Women

Lieut.-Colonel Amory: asked the Minister of Labour whether he is aware of the growing public concern at the large numbers of women still being retained in the Services without useful work to perform; and whether he will arrange with the Services concerned for an immediate speeding up in the rates of release.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to my public statement of 2nd October about releases from the Forces, and the statements I made in the Debate on 22nd October, to which I am not at present prepared to add.

Lieut.-Colonel Amory: Will the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that, in addition to the loss to the national effort, these women—many of whom were volunteers—now find themselves at a disadvantage in securing civil positions in relation to younger women who are no longer liable to call-up?

Mr. Isaacs: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman would send me particulars of those cases, we will look into them but, generally, we have no such information.

Mr. Stephen: Would the Minister consider issuing a considered statement bringing up to date all the different alterations that have been made?

Mr. Isaacs: A statement is now in preparation—is, in fact, being printed—setting out in as great detail as possible all the questions raised in the House, together with the answers. I hope it will be circulated next week.

Oral Answers to Questions — DOMESTIC EMPLOYMENT

Colonel Erroll: asked the Minister of Labour when he intends to give effect to the recommendations in the Report on Post-war Organisation for Domestic Employment, Cmd. 6650.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the reply which I gave on 18th October to the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Mr. R. A. Butler) to which I have at the moment nothing to add.

Lieutenant Herbert Hughes: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the shortage of domestic staff for public institutions and the increasing demand arising from the Government's social policy, he is considering steps for the wider recruitment and training of domestic workers.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir. With regard to hospitals in particular, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to the Stationery Office publication "Staffing the Hospitals" which sets out in Appendix II the conditions of employment, including training, for hospital domestic staffs. As to recruitment, hospital domestic vacancies are eligible for first priority and for some time past any woman has been free to leave her present employment to take up domestic work of this character unless she is employed in a key post.

Lieutenant Hughes: Could the Minister give some indication of the number of persons undergoing training for domestic service at the present time?

Mr. Isaacs: No, Sir, not without notice.

Dr. Stephen Taylor: Are these regulations permissive or compulsory?

Mr. Isaacs: I am sorry, but I do not quite get the point which the hon. Member has raised. If he will see me, I will get him the information he wants.

Oral Answers to Questions — MILITARY SERVICE (STUDENTS)

Mr. Hastings: asked the Minister of Labour whether, in view of the need for the expansion of overseas trade and the shortage of trained technicians, he will amend the regulation whereby in the case of 20 per cent. of students for a university degree in chemistry and physics their course of training is interrupted for military service.

Mr. Isaacs: I would refer my hon. Friend to the reply given to the hon. Member for London University (Sir E. Graham-Little) on 1st November, a copy of which I am sending him.

Mr. Hastings: Is it not possible to inform these students whether or not they will be selected for military service before they start working for their final degree?

Mr. Isaacs: That is another question. If the hon. Member would get into touch with me, or write to me about it, I will see what can be done.

Oral Answers to Questions — EX-ARMY OFFICERS (EMPLOYMENT)

Major Boyd-Carpenter: asked the Minister of Labour if he will state the number of Army officers placed in employment by the Ministry of Labour Appointments Branch since 9th May, 1945; and the number of appointments filled by such officers at salaries in excess of£750 per annum.

Mr. Isaacs: The statistics of placings of ex-Service personnel of my Department do not distinguish between the Services or between the salaries of posts filled, and I regret therefore that the information asked for is not available.

Oral Answers to Questions — GARLANDS MENTAL HOSPITAL (NURSING STAFF)

Mr. Grierson: asked the Minister of Labour if he is aware that the Garlands mental hospital, under the joint mental hospital control of Cumberland and Westmorland is seriously understaffed in the female nursing side, there now being only 33 nurses as compared with the prewar establishment of 62; and what steps does he propose to take.

Mr. Isaacs: Yes, Sir, I am making inquiries to see what assistance can be given the hospital to improve its staffing position.

Mr. Grierson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a similar position exists with regard to the male attendants, in respect of which the pre-war establishment was 62 and is now 51? Will he take the necessary steps to see that there is an increase in the staff?

Mr. Isaacs: I am obliged to the hon. Member for the information which he has given me.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Savings

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, when issuing statements about the amounts subscribed by the public to savings weeks and small savings, he will give in greater detail the sources of these savings.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): No, Sir. The hon. Member's suggestion would involve much additional work, which would not, in my view, be justified.

Sir W. Smithers: Would it not be fairer to try to present these figures in some form which would show how much per week was new money, and how much per week was merely the transference of old savings?

Mr. Dalton: It is quite impossible to say that without cross-examining everybody who subscribes to National Savings, and I am not prepared to do that.

Mr. Stokes: If the Minister would turn to the banks, they could quite easily give him that information.

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong. To carry out the suggestions made by the two hon. Members would involve an inquisition into the means of the patriotic people who subscribed.

Colonel Oliver Stanley: Will the right hon. Gentleman remember that statement in connection with Clause 4 of the Bank of England Bill?

Income Tax (Cash Bookmakers)

Mr. Daines: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware of the widespread evasion of Income Tax by cash bookmakers; and if he will consider a graduated stand tax as a practical means of collection.

Mr. Dalton: I should be much obliged if my hon. Friend would let me have any information in his possession on this matter. I would then consider what action it might be advisable to take.

Mr. Daines: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider, in an unofficial capacity, spending a night at the "Dogs" in order to see for himself?

Mr. Dalton: Perhaps my hon. Friend and I will go together.

War Damage Claims

Mr. Paton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that a sum of nearly£4,000 has been owing to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, on account of war damage costs, since August, 1944; that some of the contractors who carried out the repairs are in difficulties because of the delay in the settlement of their accounts and that repeated requests by the hospital board of management to the War Damage Commission and the Ministry of Health have failed to obtain a settlement; and if he will instruct the War Damage Commission to pay more quickly.

Mr. Dalton: I have asked the War Damage Commission to inquire into this case.

Mr. Paton: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman to treat this as a matter of urgency, in view of the long period, since August, 1944, during which this fairly large amount has been outstanding; as it is a considerable embarrassment to the hospital to be unable to settle its own debts which are owing to contractors.

Mr. Dalton: I will ask them to look into it.

Mr. Paton: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware of the long delays by the War Damage Commission, Eastern Region, in settling the bills of building contractors engaged on repairs to bomb-damaged houses in Norwich; that some of these contractors have been more than three months without any payment and are experiencing difficulty in meeting their own financial responsibilities thereby; and will he now take steps to expedite payments.

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir. Claims from the Eastern Region are paid, on the average, within four weeks of receipt, and substantial payments on account are made on larger claims, which take longer to settle.

Mr. Paton: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that the information I have collected on the spot is


directly contrary to his statement, that local contractors assure me that they have been paying out on accounts for three parts of the time, and they are now objecting—

Hon. Members: Speech.

Sir Ronald Ross: Is it in Order to accuse the Chancellor of the Exchequer of giving false information?

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL SERVANTS (STATISTICS)

Sir W. Smithers: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the number of civil servants before the war in 1939, the peak number during the war and the number at the latest available date.

Mr. Dalton: The number of whole-time non-industrial civil servants was 374,301 on 1st April, 1939, and 655,500 on 1st October, 1945. The peak number was 692,578 on 1st July, 1943.

Sir W. Smithers: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether it would not be in the interests of the country to make a drastic cut of, say, 20 per cent. of the civil servants right away, and see what happens?

Mr. Dalton: No, Sir.

Mr. W. J. Brown May I: ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he could indicate by what number the present figure could be reduced, but for the activities of the hon. Member for Orpington (Sir W. Smithers)?

LONDON OMNIBUSES (STANDING PASSENGERS)

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper in the name of Mr. Keeling:

Mr. Keeling: To: ask the Minister of War Transport whether he will now say if London omnibus conductors are under a legal obligation to allow passengers to stand, up to the limit allowed by his regulations; and whether he has any statement to make about his negotiations with representatives of the Union as to the fulfilment of this obligation.

The Minister of War Transport (Mr. Barnes): I will, with permission, make a statement on this subject. When, last Monday, in view of negotiations then proceeding, the House was good enough not

to press me to make a statement in answer to a Question about standing passengers in omnibuses, I promised that I would do so as soon as possible, after I had again met representatives of the union. It may assist to an understanding of this matter if I explain the nature of the regulations on which standing in omnibuses depends. Before the war, the position was that, by regulations under the Road Traffic Acts, five standing passengers could be carried during peak hours, or when undue hardship would otherwise have been caused. During the war the number of standing passengers permitted was increased to eight at any time, with authority to the Regional Transport Commissioners to permit up to 12 to be carried on specified services, or in specified areas. Since 1941, the maximum permitted in London has been 12 at any time before 7.30 p.m., and eight after that hour. It will be seen that the regulations are permissive in character, their object being to prevent undue discomfort or danger, due to overcrowding.
In July of this year the union approached the London Passenger Transport Board to modify their instructions as to standing passengers, but in view of the traffic situation at that time the Board felt unable to do so. In October, the Board having indicated that they would not oppose some modification of the regulations, the union approached the Regional Transport Commissioner in the matter, and early in November, after a discussion with the union representatives, he decided to restrict his permission to carry 12 standing passengers to the peak hours. On this being reported to central bus delegate conference, they did not regard it as satisfactory, and adopted the attitude that they should not carry any standing passengers at off-peak hours. On Thursday, 8th November, I requested representatives of the Board and the union to meet me, to decide what steps should be taken to resolve the difficulty, and as a result a further delegate conference was called for the next evening to consider the position. The delegate conference were unanimously against carrying standing passengers at off-peak hours.
I met representatives of the union again last Tuesday, and, at my request, they resumed discussions with the Board, and later that evening the joint meeting reported to me that proposals for a solution


had emerged which I regarded as satisfactory. I am glad to be able to inform the House that the proposals have been accepted and will come into operation next Saturday. I will circulate a statement of the new arrangement in the Official Report. I am satisfied that this settlement is, in all the circumstances, reasonable from the point of view of the public and the Board, as well as the staff.

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. I desire to ask you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether I am right in thinking that it will be permissible to ask a Private Notice Question, of which I have given you notice, after the next Ministerial statement—or the next two or three—and also whether it will still be in Order to ask a question about Business?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): I can assure the Noble Lord that it will be quite in Order.

Mr. Keeling: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that there is a general desire both to prevent undue strain on the public, and also to ease the strain on conductors, especially women conductors? In that spirit, I will ask him two short questions. The first is: Will the new rules be enforced; and the second: Is he satisfied that there will be sufficient additional buses available to prevent the new rules from imposing undue hardship on the public?

Mr. Barnes: Yes. They are two of the issues about which I satisfied myself, before agreeing to these modified proposals.

Following is the statement:

AGREEMENT AS TO STANDING PASSENGERS


Period
No. permitted.


Monday to Friday.


Midnight—10 a.m.
12


10 a.m.–4.30 p.m.
5


4.30 p.m.–7 p.m.
12


7 p.m.–10.30 p.m.
nil


10.30 p.m. to midnight
5


Saturday.


Midnight—10 a.m.
12


10 a.m.—noon
5


Noon—2.30 p.m.
12


2.30 p.m.–5 p.m.
5


5.0 p.m.–10.30 p.m.
nil


10.30 p.m.—midnight
5


Sunday.


All day
nil



(but crews are being asked to meet special conditions as they arise.)

PALESTINE (RIOTING, TEL AVIV)

Earl Winterton: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies has he any information to give the House about yesterday's riots in Tel Aviv?

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. George Hall): Yesterday's riots in Tel Aviv have been fully reported in the Press, and f have not yet received any information from the officer administering the Government of Palestine which would enable me to amplify those reports, but I was informed a few minutes ago that a report is now being decoded at the Colonial Office. If the Noble Lord will put his Question down again for tomorrow I will be in a position to give him full information.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: If by any chance British personnel should be among the killed in Palestine, will the right hon. Gentleman see that their next of kin do not receive the news over the wireless?

Earl Winterton: In view of the information which I have conveyed to the right hon. Gentleman, and which was sent to me by some 100 members of the Palestinian police force, to the effect that they are under the impression that members of that police force, whether British, Palestinian, or Arab, are prevented by regulations from using weapons even when their lives are endangered, could the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that the statement made by the Foreign Secretary, namely, that all reasonable force would be used to put down revolt, has been conveyed to the Palestine authorities.

Mr. Hall: The statement made by the Foreign Secretary is the policy of His Majesty's Government, and the Government of Palestine have been so informed.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Mr. Eden: May I ask the Leader of the House to tell us the Business for next week?

Mr. Herbert Morrison: On Monday, 19th November, Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
Tuesday, 20th November—Second Reading of the Emergency Laws (Transitional Provisions) Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution.
Wednesday, 21st November—Second Reading of the Elections and Jurors Bill, and Committee stage of the necessary Money Resolution, and the Second Reading of the Isle of Man (Customs) Bill.
On Thursday and Friday, 22nd and 23rd November, a Debate on Foreign Affairs will take place on a Motion for the Adjournment of the House.
The House will be aware that a further Debate on foreign policy was contemplated on the return of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister from Washington, and we have arranged for the Debate to take place at the end of next week on that assumption. It is just possible that an adjustment might have to be made, but I think it will be all right, and I am in a position to inform the House that we have every hope that my right hon. Friend will be back in time.

Mr. Eden: As regards Wednesday's Business, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is aware that this Bill was only made available to Members last night, and that it would be more convenient for the House not to be asked to proceed with Measures of such considerable importance, as I understand this Bill to be, without having at least a clear week in which to consider them? We are ready to do our best to meet the Government in this, but I would like an assurance that we shall, in future, be given a clear week to examine Bills before being asked to debate them.

Mr. Morrison: The right hon. Gentleman is on a fair point, and we shall certainly do our best to meet him. Of course, this is a Bill which arose out of the Speaker's Conference, and, therefore, the issues have been publicly known for a good time. It is necessary that this Bill, for certain legal and technical reasons, either important or essential, should become law by the end of the year. As I have said, the right hon. Gentleman's point is a fair one, and we shall do our best not to offend more frequently in the future than the public interest requires.

Mr. Eden: May I ask one further question? What I am asking for, of course, is a clear Parliamentary week, because that is what the House requires. About Thursday's and Friday's Business, as it is less than the ordinary Parliamentary two

days, I would ask whether it might be possible to extend Thursday's discussion to allow a little more time in case hon. Members wish to speak?

Mr. Morrison: We will give that suggestion favourable consideration.

Mr. Horabin: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will give time for a Debate on agriculture in the near future?

Mr. Morrison: A statement is about to be made by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, and I have a feeling that it would be better if the hon. Gentleman asked his question after that statement.

Mr. Pickthorn: Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether His Majesty's Government have considered the date for a Debate on Palestine, and whether they have considered the possible political disadvantage—I do not mean in any inner political sense—of having an interval of a fortnight or more between the announcement to which we listened the day before yesterday and the world knowing the views of this House?

Mr. Morrison: The Government recognise that it is highly probable that the House, as a whole, would wish to have a Debate on Palestine, and, if that is so, we will certainly make the necessary provision. We did wonder whether we might not take it in connection with the Foreign Affairs Debate next week, but I am doubtful whether that would meet with the approval of the House, and I am afraid I am not in a position to give a date. There are some difficulties about the exact date at the moment, but we will make provision and it will not be unduly delayed. Some little delay may not be entirely disadvantageous, because it will give a chance to everybody to reflect upon the issues involved.

Sir W. Wakefield: When may we expect to have the White Paper on Civil Aviation so that a Debate can take place on that subject shortly?

Mr. Morrison: I hope shortly, but I cannot give a date. It will not be a prolonged period.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: Going back to the subject of Palestine, may I ask if my right hon. Friend does not agree that the advantages that might be gained by delay are more than outweighed by the


disadvantages of allowing the matter to remain in doubt and dispute for a longer period than necessary; and will he consider again whether one of the days next week set aside for the discussion of foreign affairs, might not be devoted exclusively to this matter?

Mr. Morrison: We are prepared to be guided by the view of the House upon the matter, but it must be remembered that the Debate next week will concern the whole sweep of foreign affairs. The result of the consultations in Washington will come into it as well. I have a feeling that if we tried to give adequate attention to Palestine, it might be difficult. Otherwise I would be very happy to cover Palestine the week after next, but I am doubtful if we can manage it. We shall debate it as soon as we can.

Mr. Eden: Would the right hon. Gentleman be agreeable to having the Palestine Debate next week, and, if the time table is difficult, perhaps he would consider Wednesday's Business being changed so that we could take Palestine? I am trying to help the Government, but, apart from that, I think it would be unwise—and I think the right hon. Gentleman agrees—to have the Palestine Debate on the Thursday or Friday? It is most desirable to keep the issues quite separate.

Mr. Gallacher: In view of the difficulty of finding time for every matter, and in the light of the discussions that have taken place, would the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House arrange to have Scottish business discussed in Scotland? At the same time, would he consider the possibility of a Parliamentary delegation visiting the Highlands?

Mr. Morrison: I think, sometimes, it would not be a bad idea if the hon. Gentleman would remember the old Marxian slogan: "Workers of the world, unite."

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. It is not desirable that there should be misquotations in this House. The slogan is not "Workers of the world, unite"; it is "Workers of all countries, unite." I want to see the workers of Scotland get a look in.

AGRICULTURE (GOVERNMENT POLICY)

The Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Thomas Williams): I am now able to

indicate in broad outline the general principles on which the Government's agricultural policy will be based. As stated in the Gracious Speech, the Government will develop to the fullest possible extent the home production of good food, with due regard to the recommendations of the Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs. The objective will be to promote a healthy and efficient agriculture capable of producing that part of the nation's food which is required from home sources at—

Mr. McKinlay: On a point of Order. Can we be let into the secret? Will the Minister speak a little more loudly?

Mr. Williams: The objective will be to promote a healthy and efficient agriculture, capable of producing that part of the nation's food which is required from home sources at the lowest price consistent with the provision of adequate remuneration and decent living conditions for farmers and workers, with a reasonable return on capital invested.
To this end the Government propose to establish as an essential and permanent feature of their policy for food and agriculture, a system of assured markets and guaranteed prices for the principal agricultural products, namely, milk, fat livestock, eggs, cereals, potatoes and sugar beet. The annual price reviews instituted in February, 1945, will be continued, together with the provision for special reviews in exceptional circumstances. After these reviews, prices for cereals, potatoes and sugar beet will be fixed by the Government 18 months ahead of the harvest. The existing system of fixing prices for fat livestock, milk and eggs will be developed so as to cover the period after June, 1948, when the existing guarantees would otherwise cease to operate. These branches of food production entail advance breeding and other commitments for the farmer, and, in order to give the necessary continuous assurance of reasonable stability of prices, the Government propose to institute a new system of overlapping four-year periods with biennial reviews.
For example, in February, 1946, minimum price levels will be considered and fixed for the two year period ending June, 1950, and in 1948 for the period July, 1950, to June, 1952. These minimum price levels will apply to milk, fat cattle and fat sheep, for which guaranteed mini-


mum prices have already been announced until June, 1948, and to fat pigs and eggs. Actual prices for all these products will continue to be fixed in advance for 12 monthly periods after each successive February review.
All prices, minimum and actual, will be fixed with due regard to the need for the greatest possible efficiency and economy in methods of production. Account will also be taken of any modifications in the character of the agricultural output which may be necessary to meet changing national requirements. If it should become necessary to apply a quantitative. limitation to any section of the assured home market, this would be announced 18 months before the harvest in the case of crops—that is, after a February review—and at least two years in advance in the case of fat livestock, milk and eggs after a biennial review. Thus, farmers will always know the prices for cereals, potatoes and sugar beet well before the time comes for sowing those crops. For fat livestock, milk and eggs they will know minimum prices three or four years in advance, and actual prices some three to 15 months in advance. In all cases they will be given ample notice of any quantitative limitation which may be imposed on the assured market. The actual method of affording to the farmer an assured market and a guaranteed price will be worked out for each commodity with due regard to the system to be adopted by the Government for the procurement, distribution and sale of all those foods—home produced and imported—which play an important part in the nation's diet. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Food has already announced that detailed plans will be worked out by the Government, in consultation with the interests concerned, to give effect to this policy. Methods other than that of direct Government purchase, for example, the deficiency payment system of the Wheat Act, will not be excluded.
Legislation will be required to amend the statutory provisions with regard to wages regulation in the light of the wartime experience of central wage fixing machinery. As a corollary to the provision of this substantial measure of security of markets and stability of prices, the Government propose to take appropriate steps to ensure that agricultural land is

not only properly farmed but properly managed and equipped, and to promote improved efficiency in the production, marketing and distribution of home food products. Free technical advice will be made available to agriculturists to improve their farming efficiency. In order to deal effectively with the minority of farmers and landowners who fail in the responsibilities attaching to the occupation and ownership of land, the Government propose to seek powers in permanent legislation to exercise certain necessary measures of control. Such farmers and landowners will be subject to a period of supervision during which compulsory directions may be served, and in the last resort will be dispossessed if, after a reasonable period, it becomes evident that they are unable or unwilling to improve. There will, however, be a right to make representations to an independent tribunal before a tenancy is terminated by the Minister, or an owner occupier or landowner dispossessed.
Systems of marketing and distribution will come under review as part of the detailed investigation announced by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food, to which reference has already been made. Powers will be sought to enable the Agricultural Ministers to acquire land by voluntary negotiation, or compulsorily in cases of dispossession or where public ownership is the only means of securing the full productive use of the land. The Government propose to set up a commission for the purpose of managing and developing for agricultural use land acquired under these powers in England and Wales. Local bodies will be required to assist in the execution of this policy and to provide the industry with local leadership and guidance. In England and Wales county committees similar to the County War Agricultural Executive Committees will be constituted on a permanent basis. Their primary duty will be to promote efficiency, working for this purpose in close association with the National Advisory Service which it is intended to establish in England and Wales on 1st October, 1946. They will act as the local agents of the Minister in the exercise of the proposed powers of control, and undertake certain executive services. They will also be responsible for the schemes already in existence for the training of ex-Servicemen as skilled agricultural workers.
It is proposed that these committees should continue to be appointed by the Minister, but that they should be reconstituted to consist in part of persons selected by the Minister from lists of names submitted by the different sections of the agricultural industry, and in part of a smaller number of persons selected by the Minister from other sources. It is hoped that the experience of many of those who have rendered such valuable service during the war will continue to be available under the new constitution. Members of the staff of the English and Welsh committees who possess the appropriate qualifications will have an opportunity to enter the National Advisory Service. The services of others, including many of the non-technical staff, will be required in the continuing local organisation that will be preserved by these committees. Somewhat different forms of local organisation will probably be found desirable in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
The world food shortage is extremely serious. For the time being, therefore, compulsory directions to grow sugar beet and potatoes must be served, and supervision exercised where necessary, over the laying down of grass, so that this process keeps in step with the anticipated increase in livestock, with the requirements of home grown feeding stuffs and with the continued need for a large tillage acreage. As the world shortage of food passes, the Government intend to leave farmers normally to grow the crops which their experience, supplemented by guidance from the Advisory Services, indicates are most suited to their own land. They intend, however, to seek permanent powers to serve compulsory directions on any farmer whenever necessary in the national interest, but these powers will normally be used only in exercising control over farms under supervision or to supplement the methods of steering production already described, should an overriding need in national food supplies or national diet render this necessary. The controls exercised over the distribution of fertilisers, feeding stuffs, machinery and other farm material will be lifted or modified when supplies are sufficient to ensure free and equitable distribution.
This outline of the Government's plans for a gradual transition from the organisation and methods necessary to promote

maximum food production in wartime to a permanent policy appropriate to more stable conditions will need to be worked out in detail with a view to the submission of legislative proposals to Parliament. This will be done in full consultation with the organisations representative of land owners, farmers and workers. The Government hope that, with this assurance of their intentions, all sections of the industry will attack their immediate tasks with enthusiasm and confidence.

Mr. R. S. Hudson: While generally welcoming the right hon. Gentleman's statement, I think the House will agree that we shall need a considerable time to digest its implications, and I imagine that when that time has elapsed the Leader of the House will feel inclined to let us have the necessary time for debating the matter, before legislation which is contemplated is actually introduced.

Mr. Morrison: I recognise that the important statement by my right hon. Friend, together with the statement made recently by the Minister of Food, which has some relationship to it, will warrant a Debate in the House. We are in a little difficulty concerning the time table, and therefore I would ask for some consideration on whether it can take place just yet. I fully recognise that there is a reasonable case for a Debate, and we will meet the point.

Mr. Hudson: I quite agree. This is a statement of real transcendent importance, and not only the House but possibly people outside will want full time to consider its implications. I do not think my hon. Friends and I would wish to press for an immediate Debate by any means, but possibly later on, even when we resume after the Recess, there might be a Debate.

Mr. Wilfrid Roberts: While congratulating the Minister on producing his long-term policy, which seems to be full of interest, and adding that we would like a Debate within a reasonable time, may I make this suggestion? I suggest that this statement should be published as a White Paper in order that it may have full consideration by a wider public than it will get if it is published only in HANSARD.

Mr. Williams: We shall gladly consider the suggestion. In view of the fact, however, that it will appear in HANSARD, and that appropriate steps are being taken


to give it the maximum publicity, it may be that a White Paper will not be necessary.

Mr. Alpass: In view of the fact that under this policy which has been announced, farmers are to be given security of livelihood by guaranteed prices, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is equally necessary, if not more necessary—especially from the standpoint of efficient cultivation—that the farm workers should be given security in the possession and occupation of their houses, and that the most effective way of doing that is by the abolition of the tied cottage?

Mr. Williams: I am sure my hon. Friend will understand and appreciate that this is a statement of general priniciples applied to agriculture as an industry, and that it is not necessarily, for the moment, concerned with housing and other matters that may be of some importance to the industry generally.

Col. Sir Charles MacAndrew: Does it apply to Scotland as well as to England?

Mr. Williams: Certainly.

Mr. Kendall: Can the Minister state which body or organisation will have the right to submit names for prospective membership of these committees?

Mr. Williams: Obviously they will be those who are most closely identified with the industry—the farmers, workers and landowners.

Mr. Stokes: In view of the very comprehensive arrangements which are being made for our future nutritional welfare, and in view of the Lord President's declaration that this Debate, when it takes place, will be coupled with the activities of the Ministry of Food, could I ask the Lord President of the Council to bear in mind that a number of people would like an opportunity of discussing the wisdom of the Government, in doubling the rations of the country, while Europe is starving? Could I have an answer? If not, I shall come back again with the question.

Mr. Stubbs: While accepting the general policy as outlined, I am rather amazed that no mention has been made of smallholdings on the one hand, and, on the other hand, land for ex-Servicemen and

the subject of tied cottages. Would the Minister say what provision will be made for that?

Sir Ronald Ross: While thanking the right hon. Gentleman for parts of his speech, may I ask him if there was due consultation with the Minister of Agriculture in Northern Ireland; and, secondly, what is the position of farmers who grow flax?

Mr. Williams: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the views of the Northern Ireland representatives of the farming industry were taken fully into account, and they are 100 per cent. behind this policy.

Mr. Snadden: Assuming that we are going to have a Debate, I think it would be of great interest if the right hon. Gentleman could let us have some figures concerning the financial activities of the war agricultural executive committees in regard to the land which they have taken over. He has mentioned land commissions. I myself do not take exception to that, but it would be of interest to know the financial position, how the Government progressed financially during the war, and whether they have made profits or not.

Mr. Williams: Surely the hon. Gentleman will recognise that the object of my predecessor and of his predecessor during the war was to get the maximum amount of food in the shortest space of time, and questions of balance sheets were not necessarily the most important in their minds. Therefore, any accounts of the county executive committees which were operating in the tense moments of wartime are not comparable with the announcement now made, which refers exclusively to peacetime.

Mr. Gooch: The right hon. Gentleman has indicated that farm workers will benefit under his proposals, but may I ask that he will be more specific, and state what benefits will be coming to them, or are they still to be left to struggle for better conditions?

Mr. Williams: Surely my hon. Friend must appreciate that the best thing any Government can do to assist the agricultural workers is to ensure that there is a healthy, well-balanced, prosperous and stable agricultural industry, and I hope the announcement I have made shows that that will be the case.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: Whilst thanking my right hon. Friend for setting up machinery providing that there will permanently be a right of appeal in cases of conviction, something which we have wanted for a long time, may I ask him whether he can amplify what he has said about giving ample notice to farmers, so that no farmer should, if possible, suffer loss?

Mr. Williams: If my hon. and gallant Friend will read the statement in HANSARD he will see that for ordinary crops notice would be given at least eighteen months in advance, and in relation to livestock between two and four years' notice would be given in advance.

Mr. Watkins: Will the Minister make an announcement upon the Government's policy on afforestation?

Mr. Williams: I hope to be able to make an announcement on afforestation in the very near future.

Mr. David Eccles: As the Government's policy is to give guaranteed prices for the major farm products, may I ask whether the policy also includes an assurance that those prices will be raised to cover any increase in wages which the Agricultural Wages Board may give from time to time?

Mr. Williams: No, I am afraid I could give no such guarantee.

Mr. Osborne: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider a suggestion that he should discuss with the Chancellor of the Exchequer the possibility of making financial arrangements, so that the ambitious lads in the villages should have an opportunity of becoming farmers themselves, instead of farm workers, making the same opportunities available in agriculture as are provided in industry?

Mr. Williams: My hon. Friend will readily understand that we are already a nation of small farmers, and I am afraid this is not quite the moment to contemplate another large dose of small holdings on the same lines as after the last war.

Mr. Bowles: On a point of Order. This is almost becoming a Debate. It is a most unsatisfactory result of having these long Ministerial statements. Almost half an hour has been devoted to this. May I ask, having regard to the demands there have been for a discussion of the Pro-

cedure of the House, whether the Leader of the House will consider suspending the Rule for at least two hours this evening?

Mr. Herbert Morrison: I will consider that as we go along. I hope it will not be necessary.

Mr. Boothby: May I ask whether the proposals of the Government include the re-organisation of meat marketing, and in particular the position of Smithfield market and of slaughter houses?

Mr. Williams: That is implicit in my references to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food.

ADJOURNMENT MOTION DEBATES

Mr. Boothby: I would ask, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, if you will be good enough for the convenience of the House to indicate what Business is to be taken tomorrow.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby), who has the Adjournment, rises in his place in order to discuss the importation of American films he will have an opportunity of catching my eye. After allowing a reasonable time for that Debate, I hope that there will be ample time for a Debate on U.N.R.R.A., which many other hon. Members desire. As to the question of a general Ruling on the subject of matters raised on the Motion for the Adjournment in the future, Mr. Speaker will, no doubt, be willing to make an announcement from the Chair on request.

Mr. Boothby: I should like to give notice that next week I will ask Mr. Speaker to give a Ruling on that subject. It would be desirable that we should have this question of Debates on the Adjournment cleared up, and I would venture to submit for the consideration of Mr. Speaker that if the Government and the Opposition decide that it would be convenient to debate some important topic on the Adjournment that that should be announced in the Business of the week; but I submit further that the Adjournment Motion at the end of an ordinary day's business is the best opportunity that Private Members have to raise matters and the time should be given to those Private Members. If they happen to have more than half-an-hour it is their good fortune, and it should not be counted against them. I submit, with all due


humility, that the action of the Noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) the other day—

Earl Winterton: On a point of Order. May I ask how exactly this arises; and if the hon. Member is going to make a speech on the subject, shall I be allowed to reply?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member was in Order in giving notice that he intended to put his point to Mr. Speaker, but the matter is entirely one for Mr. Speaker's discretion and the other questions do not appear to arise.

Mr. Bowles: May I ask whether the Leader of the House has considered the suggestion I put to him about suspending the Rule today?

Mr. H. Morrison: I would prefer to see how we get on. I would be prepared to consider it during the afternoon, but I do not want to give a decision right off.

BILLS PRESENTED

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS) BILL,

"to provide for the payment out of the Exchequer in respect of three years of grants towards local government expenses supplementary to the General Exchequer Contribution, for the making in certain contingencies of contributions by county councils towards such grants, and for purposes connected therewith," presented by Mr. Bevan; supported by Mr Key and Mr. Glenvil Hall; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 38.]

LOCAL GOVERNMENT (FINANCIAL PROVISIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL,

"to provide for the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament towards local government expenses in Scotland of a further sum in addition to the General Exchequer Contribution payable under Section fifty-three of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1929, in respect of each of three years and for the apportionment of such sum among the counties and large burghs of Scotland," presented by Mr. Westwood; supported by the Lord Advocate, Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Thomas Fraser; to be read a Second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 39]

PROCEDURE (STANDING COMMITTEES)

Ordered:

"That the first Report from the Select Committee on Procedure be now considered."

4.9 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: On a point of Order. Would it be in Order to ask that a Special Entry be made in the Journals of the House calling attention to the fact that the Business of the Day was only entered upon at eight minutes past four, in order that it may be a warning to Ministers in the future against making these very long statements and in that way taking up the time which is allotted to Debate?

Earl Winterton: Further to that point of Order. [Laughter.] Hon. Members may laugh, but they will not prevent me from putting my point of Order I propose to do it even if I were to keep them here till 12 o'clock. I would ask whether it is not a most unprece-


dented occurrence that in one afternoon there should have been three statements from the Government without any warning having been given in advance to the House. I should like to know whether there is any limit to the number of Ministerial statements that may be made.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think I should point out that two of these statements were made in response to Questions which were on the Order Paper. In fact only one Ministerial statement was made which was not in response to a Question, that by the right hon. Gentleman tine Minister of Agriculture. It was no doubt a little unfortunate that that statement, which was rather long, should have fallen upon the same day as the answers to the two Questions. Before I call upon the Lord President of the Council to move the Motion standing in his name I feel that I ought to ask the House to agree, in order to avoid duplication of Debate, that on the Motion "That this House doth agree with the Committee" the Debate should be a general one on the whole of the matters concerned with the recommendations in the Committee's report, and that questions of machinery and so forth might be left to come in their proper place and not be discussed now. I take it that course is agreed.

Mr. Charles Williams: I am not quite sure that I do. Some of the details that come later will depend upon the answers given in the first discussion, and some of them deal with matters which it is rather difficult to discuss in the general discussion. Whilst not wishing to object to any procedure which the House as a whole might wish for, I think some of the Amendments should have a proper and full discussion on the particular points which they raise.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Arising out of that agreement, I think that as a matter of courtesy to the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) I ought to point out that his Amendment in line 2 to leave out paragraph 1 will not be called, as not being in Order, and he might therefore desire to discuss the matter in the general Debate.

4.12 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Morrison): I beg to move,
That this House doth agree with the Committee in the general recommendations contained in their Report.

On 24th August the House appointed a Select Committee to consider the Procedure in Public Business and to report what alterations, if any, were desirable for the more efficient despatch of such Business. It was an instruction to the Committee that they do report as soon as possible upon any scheme for the acceleration of proceedings on public Bills which may be submitted to them by His Majesty's Government. Now the Committee, under the chairmanship of my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Sir R. Young), have carried out this instruction faithfully, and I think the House will agree that they are to be congratulated on the speed with which they have produced their interim report, and indeed upon the fairly high degree of agreement which was reached in this Select Committee. The Committee met and took evidence during the Recess and their first report was ordered to be printed on 16th October. It is a source of congratulation that by and large they are unanimous on the main points, and generally speaking I think it can be fairly said that they accepted the proposals which were submitted to them by His Majesty's Government.
The House will recall the circumstances in which the scheme was prepared, and that the Government, while not committing itself at that stage, felt that it covered a number of proposals which were eminently worthy of consideration by the Committee and would form a useful basis from which the Committee might commence its discussions. The scheme of the Government is reproduced as an appendix to the report from the Select Committee, and I need not go through it in detail. It may, however, help the House if I briefly outline the proposals with an indication of the extent to which the Committee have departed from them. The most important proposal was that substantially all Bills should be referred to Standing Committees and the passage of Bills in Standing Committees accelerated. For this purpose, the scheme proposed the extension of sitting hours, the introduction of machinery for prescribing and enforcing a time limit on proceedings in Committee, an increase in the number of the Standing Committees, the size of the Committees being reduced if necessary for that purpose or in consequence of that decision, and certain


minor amendments in the procedure and practice in the Debates in Committee.
The Select Committee have approved the proposal to refer all Bills to Standing Committees and they agree that as many Standing Committees should be appointed as are necessary expeditiously to dispose of the Bills coming up from the House itself. They recommend that the permanent nucleus of StandingCommittees—other than the Scottish Committee—should be reduced to 20, and not more than 30 Members should be added to serve in respect of a particular Bill, making in respect of each Bill a total of 50 Members; and consequently, it is recommended that the existing quorum of 20 should be reduced to 15. The Select Committee propose that the normal hours of sitting of the Standing Committees should be from 10.30 a.m. to 1 p.m., and this recommendation compares with the Government proposal that the Standing Committees should sit from 10.45 a.m. until 1.15 p.m. As regards the numbers of sittings, the Government had suggested an additional sitting day in the week of Committees upstairs. The Committee think, however, that the proposal that Standing Committees should sit three days a week should be regarded as an expedient to relieve congestion rather than as a normal practice, and the arrangement of sittings—after the first, which by custom is fixed by the Chairman—should continue as heretofore to decide the day upon which the Committee would sit. Time will show whether the hope that it will be possible to avoid three sitting days a week is over-optimistic, but the proposal contemplates that Standing Committees should meet more often than twice a week if the state of business requires that to be done, and the Government do not wish in these circumstances to press their point.
Another suggestion in the Government scheme which is adopted by the Select Committee is that the former Standing Order No. 49A should be revived, so that the House can be adjourned after Questions to enable Standing Committees to sit concurrently in the afternoon. They add the proviso in the interest of Private Members' time that either the half hour Adjournment should be taken immediately after Questions, and any Ministerial or personal statement so that Standing Committees could meet from 4.30 p.m. to

7 p.m., and for a further period in fee evening, if necessary, or alternatively, that the House should be adjourned until 7.15 p.m. or 6.15 p.m. if an Adjournment Motion under Standing Order No 8 has been granted
In the Motions which the Government are proposing to the House they have incorporated provisions which would enable either of these alternatives to be adopted according to the circumstances of the case. On the question of applying a timetable to proceedings in Standing Committee, the Select Committee have, I think, definitely improved on the suggestion in the Government's Memorandum. This proposal was that the House should settle the total time to be made available for the Committee stage of the Bill. Its Resolution would also contain provisions on the lines of a normal Guillotine Resolution providing for the conclusion of the proceedings on the whole of the Bill, and on particular Clauses or groups of Clauses of the Bill, by means of putting, without Debate, all questions necessary to dispose of the Business. There would, however, be a Special Committee of the House to specify the intermediate times at which proceedings on particular Clauses or groups of Clauses were to be brought to a conclusion.
The Select Committee considered with great care, as I understand it, this proposal and they have simplified it, I think, beneficially. They recommend that where the Government wish to prescribe a time limit, the Guillotine Motion should take the form of naming the date by which the Standing Committee upstairs should conclude its proceedings on the Bill and proceed to Report to the House. The Select Committee recommend or suggest that the detailed allocation of sittings to parts of the Bill should be made by a Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee itself, consisting of the Chairman and seven other Members nominated by Mr. Speaker. In the case of the few Bills which will still be referred to a Committee of the whole House and for the Report stage of any Bills, the details would be embodied in the Guillotine Motion as hithertofore. The view of the Select Committee, as I understand it, was that if the House decides to limit overall the time or fix a date by which the Standing Committee is to report, on the whole, the Standing Committee, which has to


do the work upon the Bill itself, would be a better body to settle the domestic arrangements of compartmenting the Clause or groups of Clauses than would a Committee of the House as a whole. We think that that is a sound argument, and the Government, therefore, accept that proposal as an improvement on the one which they put forward. It just shows how wise it was to have a Select Committee to vet and examine and, if possible, to improve upon the Government's proposals.
Of the various minor suggestions made in the Government's scheme, the Select Committee have agreed to one, agreed, subject to a reservation, to another, deferred two and rejected two. They agree that fuller use should be made of the practice by which Ministers circulate to the Committee notes of any Clauses which might be difficult to understand; and, subject to the preservation of the right of any Member to object to taking both stages on one day, to the proposed abandonment of the Rule which prevents two stages of a Financial Resolution being taken on the same day. We accept this reservation. The Committee have deferred the proposals that no Financial Resolution should be necessary to cover provisions requiring money to be paid into the Exchequer, and that a new Clause or Amendment should longer be out of Order on Report, on the ground that it imposes, extends, or varies the incidence of any rate or other local burden.
Finally, they reject the suggestions that Committee Chairmen should be empowered to disallow Debate on the Question, "That the Clause stand part," if of opinion that there has been adequate discussion about the Clause on Amendments before the Committee, and that on Report stage of a Financial Resolution the Question should be put without Amendment or Debate. We do not wish to press either of these points at the present stage, but we are not happy about the Committee's conclusions on these two matters. On the former, we are doubtful whether the powers of the Chairman to prevent repetition are really adequate to present day needs for the purpose of preventing possible abuse. On the last point, while we agree that the amount of time involved is slight, here again there is an opportunity of using up time to little or no purpose. We pro-

pose, therefore, to ask the Select Committee to be good enough to look at these points again in the course of their general review of Procedure.
The Committee also, quite properly and usefully, draw attention in their Report to some of the practical problems which the increased use of Standing Committees necessarily entails. First of all, they point out that the Law Officers of the Crown would be in some difficulty in performing their duties in regard to the conduct of Bills, and suggest for the Government's consideration the appointment of a third English Law Officer as a partial solution of this difficulty. This suggestion has been carefully considered by the Government, but it is not one which we feel prepared to adopt. The bias should, in our view, be against increasing the number of Ministers rather than increasing the number of Ministers. There was a considerable increase of Ministers during the war. Some reduction has been made, but there are many people who think that, if anything, the existing number of Ministers is too large rather than too small. We would be reluctant to add to their number, and therefore our bias would be the other way. But what we do propose is that provision should be made whereby the Law Officers who are not Members of the Standing Committee concerned should be allowed to address the Standing Committee and be at the service of the Standing Committee as and where allowed to the greatest practicable extent, but without the right to vote in a case of that kind.
It may involve some inconvenience with the existing number of Law Officers. There is a problem, and we thought that it should be dealt with in that other way, and it will involve probably some readjustment in the work of the Law Officers. But this in itself will not sufficiently relieve the Law Officers, and as to this I would only say, first that my hon. and learned Friends recognise that they must be prepared to give up more time to attendance in Standing Committees than in the past and that, secondly, I am sure that the Government and they can rely upon the House and the Committee itself to be reasonable in their demands upon the time required from the Law Officers. It is not a question of any unwillingness on the part of the Law Officers, but they


cannot physically be in two places at once, and, of course, they have their other duties.
It may be that in some cases where comparatively straightforward points arise Standing Committees will have to be content with the presence of the Minister in charge of the Bill. Indeed, there is a lot to be said for this and after all, the Minister has the benefit of the advice of the Law Officers, and of his own legal advisers.
We hope, therefore, that the Committees will be considerate and helpful in the matter. But I repeat that, as for my hon. and learned Friends themselves, they are most anxious to be of the maximum service to the House and to its Committees upstairs, and I only ask that the House on its part will do its best not to impose unnecessary burdens upon the Law Officers of the Crown.
The Committee referred to a number of other practical difficulties which are a matter primarily for the authorities of the House itself, at any rate, in the first instance—difficulties of accommodation and the provision of clerks and reporters. Each of these is obviously of great importance. Mr. Speaker, if I may say so, lost no time in getting down to these difficulties and these important matters, and I have assured him of the full support of the Government in tackling them as far as we can give it. It may perhaps help the House if, with your permission, Sir, I deal briefly with each of these problems. The problem of accommodation, of course, involves more than the provision of rooms for the meetings of the Standing Committees. Extra accommodation has to be provided for the reporters and additional messengers and so on, but in the last resort, it is a question of squeezing the available accommodation still further, and though some inconvenience may be unavoidable, I do not think that the accommodation difficulties are insuperable, as far as we can see. The authorities of the House have the matter in hand with the Minister of Works, and there is no reason to doubt that a solution will be found.
The problem of getting such extra clerks as will be necessary is more difficult, but here again I do not think that this difficulty will be found insuperable. The authorities of the House have had it in hand, and the Minister of Labour will

do all he can to help. A complicating factor but one which may assist rather than hinder is that, while some increase in the permanent establishment may be called for, the demand will not continue throughout the year, and what is mainly needed is additional part time assistance at the peak periods.
Lastly, and most difficult of all, there is the question of reporters. Here we seem to be up against an acute and general shortage of speed shorthand writers with the special qualifications required by the Hansard staff. This matter too is being pursued by the authorities of the House, with the Minister of Labour and the Treasury, and I am hopeful that the results will be satisfactory. But I should not like the House to under-estimate the difficulties, and while, obviously, the shortage of reporters of the accustomed standard cannot be allowed to hold up the despatch of essential Parliamentary business, I do not exclude the possibility that we may have to be prepared for some temporary dilution of the exceptionally high standard of reporting to which we are used, and of which we are proud.
The draft Orders which are on the Paper will give effect to the proposals of the Select Committee. As contemplated in the Government's scheme and in accordance with the Committee's Report, they are in the form of Sessional and not of Standing Orders. I think that it will be agreed that this is right at the present stage at any rate for the time being, until we get experience. For one thing the Select Committee's inquiry is not yet wholly completed. Apart from this there may be advantages in not being too rigid for the time being. The Resolutions provide a workmanlike scheme which should result in a material overall saving of Parliamentary time. But we shall, on a number of points, be breaking new ground, especially as regards the application of the Guillotine procedure to standing committees, and we shall have to learn how to work the new machinery. It would be surprising if snags and difficulties which have not been foreseen did not arise, and we must be ready to make improvements if necessary as we go along.
The Select Committee now go on to the second and more general stage of their inquiry. I will not anticipate the further evidence which the Committee will, no doubt, wish to receive from the Govern-


ment, but I am sure that all sections of the House will join with me in wishing them well in their work. Their task is as difficult as it is responsible and important. Briefly, it may be said that it is to review the procedure of the House in the light of the legislative and other demands of a changing society, in which economic problems will necessarily take up more and more of the time of Parliament and Government alike. As I have said before, one of the great merits of our Parliamentary system, is, however, the flexibility of its procedure, and its capacity to adapt itself to changing circumstances. I am, therefore, confident that a satisfactory solution can be found for the problem of reconciling the need for effective Parliamentary control with the efficient discharge of the nation's business.
I wish the Select Committee well in their labours. I am sure that in approaching them, they will combine all the reverence which is due to the great traditions of the House with a bold and imaginative determination to adapt its procedure to present day needs. Once more, I thank the Select Committee for the speed and ability of their labours and I trust that the Motions on the Order Paper will be generally acceptable to the House.

4.35 p.m.

Mr. Eden: In all parts of the House we would wish to associate ourselves with the Leader of the House in what he has said in respect of the work done by the Select Committee, so far, in their terms of reference. I wish to deal with two aspects of this question; first certain points of importance on detail in relation to a report which has come to us, and secondly, observations I would wish to make on the results which may flow from the acceptance of this Committee's report. For my part, I cannot take exception to the principle that a greater measure of work and responsibility should be given to Standing Committees of the House and that there should be more Standing Committees, but I would add this proviso—if we have Standing Committees of 50 or less dealing with major Measures sent, after Second Reading, from this House, those Committees cannot be fully representative of the House politically, geographically or industrially. However well we arrange matters it is impossible to contrive that. I think the right hon. Gen-

tleman would agree that it flows from that that there will have to be more discussion on Report stage of major Measures than there have been hitherto. I am not saying that in any obstructive sense, but because we have always attached, and must attach great importance to minority views being expressed in this House. You cannot get, on a Standing Committee, full representation of minority views and at the Report stage they must have their chance.
Let me take an example of how differently matters may turn out on a National Insurance Bill for the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland affecting everyone in the House and a housing Measure, applicable to England and Wales, requiring only a much smaller representation on the Committee. It would be a good practice that these Standing Committees could have a high number limit, and the higher the number limit, the less time you would have to devote on Report stage probably, to the Measure when it came back to the House. I notice that the phrase used about the only Bills which are to be retained on the Floor of the House is "Measures of first-class constitutional importance. "I do think that is a very difficult definition to apply. The Government and their supporters have often reminded us in the past, and I think rightly reminded us—and the Foreign Secretary used the same argument only the other day—that in the modern world economic affairs are interwoven with and of equal importance to political affairs. I am not sure but that a Bill which affects the whole economic life of the country is not just as important as a Bill which raises even a grave constitutional issue. I do not know, it may be so. What I suggest to the Government is that in interpreting this phrase "first-class constitutional issue" the inter-relation of economics and politics that the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Secretary reminded us of a little time ago should be borne in mind.
I want to make a further reference to this question of small minorities. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) is not here this afternoon, because I have often heard him eloquent on this subject. It seems to me, and older hon. Members will, I think, agree, that one of the great values of our discussions has always been that we have given full


weight and opportunity to minority opinion in this House. The present Speaker and his predecessors in the Chair, have always been extremely careful in this matter. Indeed, it is the richness of our Parliamentary life that minority opinion has its chance. It was said of a certain lady—glamorous in a different connection from the Mother of Parliaments—that
Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale
Her infinite variety.
One likes to think that that is true of Parliament and that infinite variety applies to our discussions. That is one of the things which troubles me in the Committee system, because you cannot hope to get in the Committee discussions that infinite variety which you get when the whole House is meeting. I am seeking to warn the House of one or two dangers which I see latent in the system.
The Leader of the House spoke about the problem of accommodation. I have no doubt whatever that the Select Committee are ready, difficult although I know it will be to fulfil it, to see that Standing Committees are held in the precincts of Westminster. Hon. Members may be members of more than one Committee—certainly the Law Officers will be busy moving from one to another, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his restraint in not seizing the opportunity to appoint another Law Officer. I think he is quite right; if Ministers circulate statements instead of making them, they will all have a little more time. But I think it is quite essential that we should all work in this building, which is the only place in which we can work, and there are questions of principle which would arise if we had to meet elsewhere—

Mr. Gallacher: All except one—the Scottish Grand Committee.

Mr. Eden: The hon. Member has that Scottish bee in his bonnet.
I would like to say one word about the timetable in connection with these Standing Committees. The right hon. Gentleman said, quite rightly, that this was a complete innovation in connection with the work of our Standing Committees and I must tell the right hon. Gentleman that we on this side of the House feel the gravest doubts as to the need for this arrangement. May I draw the attention

of the House to page 6 of the report of the Committee, to the passage which describes the extra time which is now to be available for discussion of Bills in Committee? This is the position that arises:
…if seven Standing Committees were appointed and sat regularly from Christmas to the Summer Recess, they would be able to accomplish about three and a half times as much work as has been done in Standing Committees on an average in the past, or about two and one-third times the amount in the heaviest recorded Session. It would thus appear that, on the existing basis of two Sittings a week, increased by the proposed additional half hour, there would be time to deal with any volume and Bills which could be put through their other stages on the Floor of the House.
What I want to say to the right hon. Gentleman on this matter, to which we attach most importance in this discussion, is that we shall be glad if he can give us a reassurance. I think it is desirable since we are making this innovation, and it is, indeed, of the first importance, that we should give it a fair trial, in entrusting the Committees with more important Bills than they have had before. We should not start from the assumption that there is going to be, to call it bluntly, obstruction, in the Committees. My request, therefore, is that Standing Committees shall be given a chance to work their way through these Bills, and that there shall not be a time-table imposed until discussion has revealed that there is a case for such a timetable.
An hon. Member opposite shakes his head, but I would say with respect that I have sat on these Standing Committees and that I believe the Government will get on more quickly if they do not start in each case with a fixed time-table in advance. If you place before a Standing Committee this time-table you may find that it is a habit of the Standing Committee to use all the time-table. On the other hand, in many cases, even in the last week or two in point of fact, Bills have gone through Standing Committee with great rapidity, greater rapidity perhaps than if there had been a time-table to work to.

Lieut.-Colonel Dower: One Bill went through the Committee in two hours.

Mr. Eden: That emphasises the point I am making. While I think that is of merit and significance in this House, if we are to agree that these major Bills


should go to a Standing Committee, I would only ask the Government to give it a fair chance of being tried out. If they find that the Bills are not making progress and if, as is possible—though so far I gather that it has not been the case—the Opposition take up more time than the Government, the Government can come and explain to the House. I hope that the Government will give us a real assurance on this point.
Now I would say one word about the Chairmen. It is desirable not to mix up the position of Chairman with decisions about the work and the programme of the Standing Committee. I know that some Members, like the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr and Bute, Northern (Sir C. MacAndrew), who have had a long experience on the Chairman's panel, are reluctant to be drawn into a discussion on how the time of the Committee should be parcelled out. I suggest that that is a matter to which the right hon. Gentleman and the Government might give a little more consideration.
There does not seem to be provision here to deal with the absence of a quorum on a given day, should that absence entail the loss of a Sitting. The House will understand that it is a different position in Standing Committee from when we are discussing a Measure in Committee of the Whole House. In the first place, the difficulty of a quorum in the Whole House is nothing like so great as in the Standing Committee, and if we have the Guillotine Procedure on the Floor of the House it is for so many allotted days. In the Standing Committee you would be working to a given date, and if there is not a Quorum and a day is lost, it is clear that the date should be put back accordingly. That is a point which I should like to see dealt with. My hon. Friends have an Amendment on the Paper to deal with it.
To sum up, I want to say, in general, about these proposals, that how they work out in practice will much depend upon how the Government apply them. I read last night to refresh my memory a speech which seemed to me to put very well the anxieties which some of us feel about these changes. Perhaps I may quote from a speech, which was made in 1937:
This House has never been a mere Assembly for registration. It has never been a

mere debating society. It has never been merely the House which the Government use as an instrument of registration. It has never been a House to which the Government say: 'Here is our suggestion. You may take it and say Aye or No.' This House has always taken an active share in legislation. Members have shaped legislation, Members have all shaped legislative proposals. A Bill is brought in. It is discussed in principle, it is taken to the Committee and goes through Report. By the time it has been through those various stages, although it is the Government's Bill it has been framed by the cooperation of Members of the House. Where certain Members oppose a Bill in principle they take an active part in trying to make it workable. Therefore, every Bill that goes through the House becomes in that way the work of the whole House. The importance of that Procedure is that the experience and ideas of Members of the House are brought into the common pool. There is the traditional British method. The democratic method. There is another method which obtains in other countries. In some countries the dictator frames the legislation and submits it to a Grand Council but the Grand Council has no right to say anything but Aye and No and it always says No. There is a danger that this House may be turned into the equivalent of the Fascist Grand Council.
Those are very wise words, uttered by the present Prime Minister. I commend them to the Lord President of the Council. I ask nothing more than that the Government, in their interpretation of these new powers, they will observe the spirit and the letter of that statement.
I have one other caution to give the House which I hope I may do without impertinence, and based upon my experience when leading the House. A great deal is being asked of Members by this proposal. They are going to begin to work at half past ten and are going on looking at each other in different places until half past ten at night. That will be a very severe strain to put upon them. I do not know what the consequences will will be, but up to date the only Members of the House who have that kind of experience are those who are called "the usual channels. "They contrive to do that with a smooth efficiency at which we all marvel, but it would be sad if the rest of us became a sort of desiccated usual channel. I think the Government should watch the matter from the point of view of the future personnel of Parliament. I believe the right hon. Member agrees with me that we should lose if it were impossible for those who work outside to attend our deliberations. If we saw nobody but each other we should suffer very much. I


am equally sure that others would suffer quite a bit and the value of this House would suffer. How many times have hon. Members experienced it; whatever subject there is under discussion there always seems to be somebody in the House who has had first-hand experience of it. That is something we do not want to lose, but if we all have to work from 10.30 a.m. till 10.30 in the evening we shall lose it, because hon. Members will not be able both to do their work and come to this House. I beg the right hon. Gentleman to give all the consideration he can to that point of view.
Finally, a great deal depends upon the right hon. Gentleman as Leader of the House. He has the great trust and responsibility that he, more than anybody else, is the custodian of the reputation of this House. He will remember the lines which run:
He that filches from me my good name Robs me of that which not enriches him And makes me poor indeed.
It is in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman to a large extent how this experiment will work. It is an experiment for the period of the Session as a Sessional arrangement. If we apply the experiment in the spirit of the quotation which I read to the House, we shall show once more how Parliament can adapt itself; but I ask him in all sincerity that the Government should do it in a manner which takes account of the fact that all parties in the House have a contribution to make, and that unless they are given a chance to make that contribution the machine will not work well, and the nation will suffer.

ATOMIC ENERGY (UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION)

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Whiteley): I beg to move, "That this House do now adjourn."

5.5 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am sorry to intervene but there is a statement to be made which I think the House would like to hear. The Prime Minister has been in communication with me from Washington and I with him, to the best of our ability, and he has asked me, on his behalf, to inform the House that decisions have been reached at Washington with

regard to the consultations between himself, President Truman and Mr. Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister of Canada. The Prime Minister thought that this House would like to know at the earliest possible moment the terms of the communiqué which has been issued by the President, the British Prime Minister and the Prime Minister of Canada. This is the communiqué
"The President of the United States, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the Prime Minister of Canada, have issued the following statement:
1. We recognise that the application of recent scientific discoveries to the methods and practice of war has placed at the disposal of mankind means of destruction hitherto unknown, against which there can be no adequate military defence, and in the employment of which no single nation can in fact have a monopoly.
2. We desire to emphasise that the responsibility for devising means to ensure that the new discoveries shall be used for the benefit of mankind, instead of as a means of destruction, rests not on our nations alone, but upon the whole civilized world. Nevertheless, the progress that we have made in the development and use of atomic energy demands that we take an initiative in the matter, and we have accordingly met together to consider the possibility of international action:
(a) To prevent the use of atomic energy for destruction purposes.
(b) To promote the use of recent and future advances in scientific knowledge, particularly in the utilisation of atomic energy, for peaceful and humanitarian ends.
3. We are aware that the only complete protection for the civilised world from the destructive use of scientific knowledge lies in the prevention of war. No system of safeguards that can be devised will of itself provide an effective guarantee against production of atomic weapons by a nation bent on aggression, particularly since the military exploitation of atomic energy depends, in large part, upon the same methods and processes as would be required for industrial uses. Nor can we ignore the possibility of the development of other weapons or of new methods of warfare, which may constitute as great a threat to civilisation as the military use of atomic energy.


4. Representing, as we do, the three countries which possess the knowledge essential to the use of atomic energy, we declare at the outset our willingness, as a first contribution, to proceed with the exchange of fundamental scientific information; and the interchange of scientists and scientific literature for peaceful ends with any nation that will fully reciprocate.
5. We believe that the fruits of scientific research should be made available to all nations, and that freedom of investigation and free interchange of ideas are essential to the progress of knowledge. In pursuance of this policy, the basic scientific information essential to the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes has already been made available to the world. It is our intention that all further information of this character that may become available from time to time shall be similarly treated. We trust that other nations will adopt the same policy, thereby creating an atmosphere of reciprocal confidence in which political agreement and co-operation will flourish.
6. We have considered the question of the disclosure of detailed information concerning the practical industrial application of atomic energy. The military exploitation of atomic energy depends, in large part, upon the same methods and pro cesses as would be required for industrial uses. We are not convinced that the spreading of the specialised information regarding the practical application of atomic energy, before it is possible to devise effective, reciprocal, and enforceable safeguards acceptable to all nations, would contribute to a constructive solution of the problem of the atomic bomb. On the contrary we think it might have the opposite effect. We are, however, prepared to share, on a reciprocal basis with other of the United Nations, detailed information concerning the practical industrial application of atomic energy just as soon as effective enforceable safeguards against its use for destructive purposes can be devised.
7. In order to attain the most effective means of entirely eliminating the use of atomic energy for destructive purposes and promoting its widest use for industrial and humanitarian purposes, we are of the opinion that at the earliest practicable date a Commission should be set up under the United Nations to prepare recommendations for submission to the organisation.

The Commission should be instructed to proceed with the utmost despatch and should be authorised to submit recommendations from time to time dealing with separate phases of its work.
In particular, the Commission should make specific proposals:—
(a) For extending between all nations the exchange of basic scientific information for peaceful ends.
(b) For control of atomic energy to the extent necessary to ensure its use only for peaceful purposes.
(c) For the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.
(d) For effective safeguards by way of inspection and other means to protect complying states against the hazards of violations and evasions.
8. The work of the Commissions should proceed by separate stages, the successful completion of each of which will develop the necessary confidence of the world before the next stage is undertaken. Specifically, it is considered that the Commission might well devote its attention first to the wide exchange of scientists and scientific information, and as a second stage to the development of full knowledge concerning natural resources of raw materials.
9. Faced with the terrible realities of the application of science to destruction, every nation will realise more urgently than before the overwhelming need to maintain the rule of law among nations and to banish the scourge of war from the earth. This can only be brought about by giving wholehearted support to the United Nations Organisation, and by consolidating and extending its authority, thus creating conditions of mutual trust in which all peoples will be free to devote themselves to the arts of peace. It is our firm resolve to work without reservation to achieve these ends."
That is the end of the communiqué. I am sure the House generally will take my view, that this would not be the moment to discuss it or, if I may say so with great respect, even to pursue it by question and answer. There will be an opportunity for debate in the Foreign Affairs Debate.

Mr. Eden: I entirely agree with the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PROCEDURE (STANDING COMMITTEES)

Question again proposed,

"That this House doth agree with the Committee in the general recommendations contained in their Report."

5.5 p.m.

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: The Procedure in the Public Business of the House has changed little for a very long time. It is 27 years since I first became a Member, and the alterations in the conduct of Business during that time have been few and trivial. In the previous two generations, apart from the Closure, the "Kangaroo" and the right of Mr. Speaker and the Chairmen to select Amendments, there was was no important change. Obviously the tempo of the world has become quicker with the introduction of the telephone, wireless, aeroplanes and many other things, so Parliamentary Business must be speeded up, particularly as Parliament today has so much more to do than it had in the old days. I feel, therefore, that a good case has been made out by the Government for certain alterations in our procedure, and I think some of the suggestions made by the Select Commitee are good. I quite agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) in what he has said on other matters, but I want to refer to a matter which at the moment has not been referred to in there port of the Select Committee. The Lord President of the Council said that he hoped the Select Committee would give further consideration to certain matters, and I hope that the particular matter to which I am going to refer will receive consideration not only by the Select Committee but by the Lord President of the Council and the Government. It concerns the rights of Private Members.
What rights has the private Member today? He has only the right to the half-hour Adjournment, or a little longer than a half-hour if the ordinary business does not run the full time. What has happened in the past? Up to the beginning of the war in 1939, the private Member had

practically two days a week. Every Wednesday we used to ballot for the right to introduce Motions, and on the following Wednesday, one at 3.45 and the other at 7.30, the two successful Members would introduce their Motions. Those were most valuable in enabling private Members to put forward their point of view and take part in forming the policy of the Government of the day. There was also the additional advantage that, on those Wednesdays, those who did not want to take part in or listen to either of the Motions could take a day off and could accept an engagement in their constituency. But more important than those Wednesday occasions were the private Members' privileges on Friday. Most of the Fridays of the year were devoted to the consideration of private Members' Bills. Immediately a new Session was started, in November, we had a ballot, and about the first 13 or 14 who came out of the hat had the following 13 or 14 Fridays. It was always considered by Mr. Speaker that if a Debate on a private Members' Bill on Friday ran from 11 till 4 he would give the "Closure" if the private Member could get 100 people to support the motion. The latter would then get his Second Reading, and his Bill went upstairs.
I would like to point out that some very valuable Bills have been put on the Statute Book in that way, some by Members still in this House. The right hon. Lady the Minister of Education passed through a very valuable Act in 1939 regulating the hire-purchase trade in this country in a manner which has worked equitably ever since. The Senior Burgess for Oxford University (Sir Alan Herbert) carried through this House the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1938, dealing with divorce, which was long overdue. If I may with due modesty refer to the fact, the hon. Member for Harwich in 1938 put on the Statute Book the Inheritance (Family Provisions) Act, which had the effect of putting the law with regard to inheritance in this country on an equitable basis and removing very much unfairness. In years gone by a great many important Acts of Parliament have been introduced by private Members; I cannot refer to all of them, but I would remind the House that one of them was the Daylight Saving Act, and another the Copyright Act, which was introduced by Mr. T. P. O'Connor and which only recently


has had the distinction of being the subject of a film designed to show the general public what was accomplished. That was another Private Member's Bill.
I recognise that in raising the standard of the private Member I am probably doing so at one of the most difficult times in the country's history. We have a new Parliament with an enormous number of new Members in every party, and the new Members have never had the opportunity of knowing and appreciating what private Members' rights were. I would remind the new Members that in altering the procedure of this House we are not doing so merely for this Parliament or for the next five years. What we do today will probably, like the procedure in the past, remain unchanged for two generations or more. If private Members are today deprived of their rights—it may seem harder at the moment to those of us on the Opposition side than to those on the other side, who after all have got the power and are helping to pass their own Bills—but in five years' time it may be the other way round—the Government supporters may find that they have made a rod for their own backs in taking away the private Members' rights which they will later desire to have.
I know perfectly well that any Government—it does not matter what party it is—is opposed to private Members' rights. Ministers regard back benchers as merely "Division Lobby fodder"—

Mr. Jack Jones: Would the hon. Gentleman produce evidence of that? It is far better to be considered as lobby fodder than as cannon fodder, as we have been considered by the Conservatives.

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: So far as the Ministers are concerned, they want their people to go into the Lobby in the way they are told, and as a matter of fact if a supporter of the Government goes into the Lobby as he is told by the Whip, Ministers do not care whether he knows what he is voting for or not. I want to give the House two reasons for Private Members' rights being preserved. The first is that many valuable Measures have been placed on the Statute Book by Private Members, and the second is that many of those Bills would never have been introduced by the Government of the day.

Mr. Naylor: How does the hon. Gentleman know that?

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: In the case of the Act to which I have already referred, the Matrimonial Causes Act, no Government, either Conservative or Liberal, would for years introduce a Bill for the reform of the divorce law, owing to the fact that there were so many internal differences in each of those parties on the matter, and for that reason neither party was prepared to deal with divorce. It is a very clear example, and there are many others.

Sir Robert Young: The hon. Gentleman is criticising the action of the Government in taking Private Members' time, but he is not dealing with the Report presented by the Select Committee over which I have the honour to preside.

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: I hope the Committee over which the hon. Gentleman presides will take note of what I am saying and when they present their further Report will include in their recommendations the suggestions I am making to the House.

Mr. Bowles: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Does not the Motion we are discussing deal with the present Report and not the future Report of the Select Committee?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): The hon. Member for Harwich (Sir S. Holmes) is getting rather wide of the Motion. I would ask him to confine his remarks to the Motion that is before the House.

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: I have almost finished my remarks, Sir. May I point out that the Lord President of the Council referred to certain things which were not recommended by the Committee and said that he hoped the Committee will reconsider them. That is exactly what I am doing. I am dealing with the past procedure of the House and calling attention to the fact that the Report omits an essential part of that procedure, and I am asking that consideration be given to its being re-inserted in the procedure of the House. In raising the question of the rights of Private Members, I would like to quote something which the Prime Minister said in his speech to Congress a day or two ago:


In the world today we must assure the common man a fair deal.
All I ask is that the Select Committee and the Government give the Private Member a fair deal. The bus workers are trying to prevent people from standing up. I want Private Members to have the right to stand up in this House. Let every back bench boy—[Interruption]—and as the hon. Member opposite suggests, every back bench girl, in every party demand the maintenance of Private Members' rights in this Parliament and in the Parliaments that will succeed it.

5.20 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Webb: As this is the first time I have sought to catch your eye, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I trust the House will give me their usual consideration. It is particularly necessary in my case, since for many years I have sat in another part of this building exercising judgment on the speeches of hon. Members, and I am afraid my judgment was sometimes harsh and ungenerous. Now that I am delivered into your hands, I trust that on this occasion at least the judgment of hon. Members will be kinder and more generous than was my own. I thought I might speak for the first time in this House on this subject because I am a Member of the Select Committee, and it seemed to be no bad thing to start off on something one knew something about, no matter what temptations one has to face later on.
It was said at the time that the recommendations of the Select Committee were published that they did not amount to very much. They were small. I recollect that "The Times" on that occasion seemed to be rather frigid about them, but then, of course, "The Times" is frigid about most things these days, and perhaps that is not very significant. But it is not true that virtue always lies in size. A thing is not necessarily poor because it is small. We have only to look at the Liberal Party to see the truth of that statement. It is true that these proposals are small; it is important we should understand that they are small, that they do not enter into the more fundamental problems of reform which this House and the Select Committee still have to face. The Committee themselves declare in their Report that they

desire at the outset to emphasise the limited character of the present Report and to make it clear that it is made without prejudice to any wider proposals for the reform of Parliamentary procedure which they may later recommend.
It is important, I think, not only to recognise the advantages of this scheme, but equally to recognise its limitations. It should be understood particularly by the Government that these proposals can do no more than create a rather wider channel for the flow of legislation. They do no more than that. They do not deal with the wider problem of how we can secure a more effective use of the whole of the time at our disposal. They do not deal with the problem of how we can expedite Government Business without sacrificing the essential function of political scrutiny in this House. Nor do they deal with how Parliament can sustain the new burdens which must now be faced in the light of contemporary conditions. Those problems remain.
I do not share the view of those—some in my own party perhaps—who believe that Parliament was designed by a cunning ruling class to frustrate the aspirations of the common people. I think that history proves that to be quite an erroneous opinion. The practices of this House have actually grown out of historic clashes of principle and interests which, in their own way, were as fundamental and as stark as those which now face us. Therefore, we have evolved a Parliamentary system which at heart, in my judgment, is really sound. But I think it must also be said—and said from these benches—that that system is not constructed to deal with the new problems of government. It is not fitted in its present shape, and the tempo which is possible in its present shape is not adequate, for the burdens which are now before us. Parliament now must take an increasing responsibility for the management of the country's economic affairs. That will be so whichever party is in power. If it should so happen that the party opposite come back into power after the next Election, while they might have a different approach from that of hon. Members on this side to economic affairs, undoubtedly they would have to be responsible, or take responsibility on behalf of the Government, for the control and direction of a large sector of the economic activity of this country. That is inevitably so. That being so, it


is important that we should see that the House does not break down because we have not redesigned and reconditioned our methods in the light of these new responsibilities. Clearly, the proposals now before the House do not do that. They await the attention of the Select Committee, and I call attention to them because it seems to me important, as I have already said, to recognise the limitations of what it is we are now doing.
Now, I would like to raise one or two considerations which are prompted by the Report. First, I would like to express the hope that the public outside will recognise that very heavy physical burdens are to be placed on Members of this House. I support entirely what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) said in that respect. It is important that the public should apprehend that. Members of all parties in this House will be faced for a very longtime with very serious physical burdens and the extra work in these extra Committees will add to those burdens. I hope that my colleagues in the journalistic profession will not in future venture to suggest to the public that Members of this House are not doing their business if these Benches are not always crowded on occasions of this kind.
The second consideration I would like to put is this. I want to suggest to the Government that it will be necessary, if the best use is to be made of Parliamentary time, for the Government to plan their legislative programme with greater precision. That has not been done in the past. It seems to me there has been an extraordinary lack of planning in the business of bringing legislation before the House. It has been a very haphazard business largely determined by which Minister was most articulate or artful inside the Cabinet. The Lord President of the Council, as the Minutes of Evidence before the Select Committee show, confessed that he himself, because he was rather more articulate and artful than other Ministers, managed to get priority for Bills which, on their merits, ought not to have had priority. I think that is a bad thing. I think it is wrong that the flow of legislation should primarily be determined by the individual artfulness of Ministers. I think that the Cabinet should see that the feeding of legislation into this improved and enlarged machine is more skilfully contrived in the future than it

has been previously. If it does not, it is clear, as a result of the scrutiny which Members of the Select Committee have been able to make on this matter, that the advantages the Government hope to get will not accrue.
I want next to underline the observations in the Report on the staff of the OFFICIAL REPORT. The recommendation is:
The Committee feel bound to record the view of the Editor of the Official Report that in existing circumstances he could see his way to provide for only four Committees and that at the present rate of salary it would not be possible to recruit more reporters of the very high standard required.
The Lord President of the Council has indicated that the Government are aware of this problem and intend to look into it, but he did not touch on the heart of this matter. I want to suggest to him that the Government's inquiry into this problem will be fruitless unless they decide at the outset that they are prepared to pay these excellent craftsmen more money for their services in this Assembly. It is quite true that there is now, and will be for a considerable time, a shortage of competent, expert shorthand writers, but if this House is to have its share of that limited supply, if it is to attract more of them away from the more glamorous life of the newspapers, it must offer higher material rewards. I venture to say that the present rewards are hopelessly inadequate. They are quite unfair, and the men who do this excellent work for us are entitled to more money. I hope the Government will see that they get it. I think that any man who is prepared to make a profession out of listening all day to the speeches in this House deserves the highest reward.
I have only one further observation to make. It is on a matter that was raised by the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington in another connection. Many people believe that this experiment in extending the Committees may develop into a complete Committee system. I know that idea has very many attractions for a large number of people. I think the scheme should develop and that more work might be done in Committee, but for my part I am entirely opposed to turning this Assembly into some sort of exalted town council. I think that would be quite wrong, and I think it would vitiate the real merit and


quality of this House in the defence of the cause of democracy in this country. I think we should be ill-advised to destroy the central function of this House as the great forum of debate on public policy, and a general clearing house for the people's aspirations. We must preserve that at all costs and adjust our extension of Committee activity to it without destroying that central function.
That is all I wanted to say, but, as this is my first speech, may I conclude with this general observation? I would like to declare my own personal faith and belief in Parliament as the most valuable British institution. I would rather have a Parliament in the control of the party opposite, alarming as that would be, rather than no Parliament at all. If this institution were to go, our established system of democratic liberty would go with it, and great darkness would descend upon the land, but, if it is to survive, in this institution, which it is our business to work in these troubled times, it is essential that we should remove any weaknesses that we may find in its structure. It is imperative that we should not place tradition before the public good, although we should not be reckless in discarding anything which tradition has shown to be both prudent and desirable. We must constantly have in our minds the need for scrutinising our methods so that we march abreast of events, and if we see that the machinery of government, which has its centre and pivot in this Assembly, matches the questing mood of our people at this time, we may be sure that this ancient House has yet to see its most glorious and most fruitful years.

5.32 p.m.

Major Guy Lloyd: I am very happy that it falls to my lot to congratulate the hon. Member for Bradford, Central (Mr. Webb) upon his maiden speech—an outstanding maiden speech, in my judgment; well informed, constructive, thoughtful, and one upon which he had obviously been cogitating for some time. It is well that the hon. Member has been a member of this important Committee and it is good that he should have chosen this particular subject, upon which he has been so well informed, as the subject of his maiden speech. Those of us who have known him in other capacities are delighted to

hear him, and I am pleased it has fallen to my lot to congratulate him upon his maiden speech. I hope we shall hear him very often on the subjects about which he is so well informed. I am glad, also, to feel that, having seen us from another angle, he still has such a high opinion of this great Mother of Parliaments. That is encouraging to us who have never been able, perhaps, to see ourselves as others see us.
Those hon. Members who were able to hear my views when this Committee was in prospect will, perhaps, not be surprised if I do not give to its report the praise which some hon. Members might think it deserves. I never felt very happy about this Committee, although I recognise—as who does not?—that there is always room for improvement and amendment in our procedure. I have had a feeling all along that the major object of this Committee was to facilitate the production of the mass of legislation which this particular Government has in prospect, much of which legislation is, in my judgment, unnecessary, and much of it likely to be something with which I would fundamentally disagree, and yet this Committee was set up to facilitate it. I wonder they did not recommend that we should have some form of endless belt from the Government factory that produces these Bills into this Chamber, but, at any rate, if things go on as they seem to be going on, and legislation increases at the same rate, we shall perhaps not only be discussing questions of our own "time rates" as we are to do later, but also questions of our own piece rates for dealing with this mass of legislation.
I do not see where the time of the House is going to be greatly saved by these proposals. Certainly not the time of hon. Members, and, after all, the time of hon. Members is the time of the House, and I cannot see how we are going to have any more time to give attention to our duties through the proposals of this Committee than we had before. We are getting choked and overwhelmed with business, and the real solution is not to alter the procedure but to ease the burden of legislation which is thrust upon this House. Many Bills are, in my judgment, entirely unnecessary. I do not like the tendency of the present day to restrict the time given to Bills in this House. In the old days, we used to have several days given to a Second Reading. Those of us


who read our Parliamentary history and have studied HANSARD in the past know that several days used to be given to the Second Reading of quite ordinary Bills.
I would give one example. When the Bank Charter Act was considered in 1844, the House of Commons gave seven full days to discussing the Second Reading. What did we give to the Bank of England Bill? Just about one day, or rather less than that. That is a sign of the times. This tendency to go in for upstairs committees to give detailed consideration to major Bills is not one to be commended. Many of us are going to be prevented from voicing our criticisms in Committee, and, if so, we ought to have a longer time on the Floor of the House for Second and Third Readings of Bills so that full discussions can take place and so that those not members of the Standing Committee can have an opportunity of giving their views.
The wartime practice of having one day, or two, for Second Reading was all right, because we had the Committee stage on the Floor of the House and because the Committee stage enabled a Bill to be gone into fully without the discussion being curtailed. But now, when the Government propose so often to take away the Committee stage from the Floor of the House, I think it is of fundamental importance, in the light of the historic traditions of this House, that we should definitely have some assurance from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House in view of the fact that so many of these important Bills are to go away upstairs to a Standing Committee. Will the Government consider taking into account these considerations and say that they would be sympathetic to a longer time being provided on the Floor of the House for the Second Reading of Bills?
I feel that it is nonsense for some hon. Members opposite to suggest that it is of importance to discuss Bills that are of economic importance upstairs in Committee and discuss Bills of constitutional importance here. I cannot see in the least why that distinction should be made, and I think it is quite unconstitutional to suggest it. There is nothing in the history of Parliamentary procedure or Parliamentary tradition to suggest that there is something more sacrosanct about matters of economic importance and interest than about matters of constitutional

importance. Indeed, I thought that right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite attach very much greater importance to economic questions than to constitutional questions. Why, then, should they say that constitutional questions should come here on the Floor of the House and economic questions go upstairs in Committee? There seems to me to be no logic in that argument. Perhaps it is because so much of their legislation will involve them in economic questions and not as yet in constitutional ones.
I do not think it cuts much ice to talk about the immense burden of indispensable legislation which has been one of the major causes for setting up this Committee. There is really no indispensable legislative burden; the legislation may be indispensable to the convenience of the Government, but not to the country or to the House. I think that is a mere excuse, and it is unfair to use that excuse to get through this mass of legislation in their revolutionary programme. I cannot see why this side of the House should be so co-operative about it.
What is the idea behind the whole business? It is to overthrow, as far as possible, the well-tried procedure of Parliament just to suit the book of the Government—to suit Socialist ideas. Why should we hasten on the Socialist millennium in this way? We have no part in that whatever, and I see no reason why I should be asked to be co-operative in that respect. Another point which I think is important to mention is that the Opposition must have the fullest possible opportunities of exposing bad legislation, and never was that more important than now, and never will it be more important than it is likely to be in the immediate future with the bad legislation that will come along and bad Bills that will be placed before the House. These opportunities are being curtailed by these proposals. That is wrong and it is a retrograde step. Some mention has been made by the hon. Member who has just sat down about questions of staff and indeed it is an important question. I appreciate that the Committee gave sympathetic consideration to it, but it is a serious problem. The whole question of staffing these Standing Committees and of hon. Members' attendances at the meetings have not, I think, been thrashed out sufficiently satisfactorily to all parties concerned, and I only hope that as this scheme is of an


experimental character we shall be able to make adjustments to suit those who are as interested in this particular question as Members of Parliament themselves.
Finally, procedure, in fact, makes the Constitution, and not vice versa. That seems to me to be the fundamentally wrong basis on which these proposals have been placed before us. I say that procedure in this House gradually builds up the constitution, just as it has done through past years, and now, to try to alter procedure and say that it has nothing to do with the constitution is, in my opinion, fallacious. I am very glad that these proposals are only to be experimental. I am quite sure that many hon. Members on this side will want to take a very active part in criticising any further efforts to curtail the opportunities of hon. Members for full discussion on the Floor of the House.

5.44 p.m.

Mr. Braddock: As this is the first time I have attempted to address the House, I ask for the usual indulgence given to new hon. Members. I have, naturally, had no experience of procedure in the House, but, following the hon. Member opposite who has just down, I feel that it is necessary to emphasise that there is possibly a different point of view in this House now from that which has existed before, and also a very different task to be done.
We are aware that in the past this House existed largely to keep things in this country as they were. There are a different party, a different majority, and a different Government in this House precisely because great changes have to be made. This country cannot continue unless enormous changes are made, and we have to make them for the sake of the people of this country, and for the sake of common decency and humanity we have to make them as rapidly as we possibly can.
Something has been said this evening about overwork. I do not find myself overworked in this House; indeed, I have been astonished at the small calls that have been made on my time. I agree that I have had to write a lot of letters, and have to deal with a lot of small details. It seems to me, however, that those things could be dealt with much better by some sort of Committee arrange-

ment which got down to settling these many problems at the base, instead of leaving them to individuals to tinker with and bother Ministers and ministerial Departments about. So far as the Committee system is concerned, as I see it that system must continue to develop so that every hon. Member can be fully employed.
I speak as a new Member, and I am told that I shall bow down presently before the old traditions of this House. Frankly, I hope I never shall, and I am putting this on record so that I can look back to it in the future in case I find myself slipping. It seems to me essential that the Members of this House should have special and intimate knowledge on all matters connected with Government, and it would be excellent it there were a Committee of Members associated with every Minister and Ministerial Department so that they would understand right from the base. There should be Committees that can call for evidence, Committees that can interview officials, Committees that can have close association with the various Government Departments. That will be necessary in the very near future. The Ministers of the Crown, faced with the tasks they have before them, cannot possibly deal with these matters adequately; they should have people closely associated with them who can go into various parts of the country, investigate, produce reports, take up various phases of their work, so that there is always somebody in this House who has a close and intimate control of all matters connected with Government. These ideas may be all wrong; possibly in two or three months I shall realise that I am wrong but at present this is how I feel about it and I am encouraged in this because I remember, when I was about 18 years of age and first joined the Socialist movement, that I was told then that my new ideas were all wrong and that I should learn better. Look at the result today after 40 years. Therefore, I am not altogether discouraged because I have new ideas.
There is one matter which has been mentioned in the Report, and by the Leader of the House, which I do not think is having the consideration it should have—the question of accommodation. I think we have learned in recent times that the kind of accommodation in which


we carry on any activity is of tremendous importance. We have learned that in order to achieve production in factories, we have to lay out our factories properly. Our office buildings have to be properly and adequately arranged. The same thing applies to this Palace of Westminster. We are told there are difficulties and that there are not enough rooms for the staff and it is indicated that the authorities—whoever they may be—will deal with that problem. I think that is a problem about which we Members should have something to say and, on the face of it, it seems to me obvious that improvements should be made very rapidly. Now I am not going to advocate that the old House of Commons which was destroyed should not be rebuilt I think it should be rebuilt, but not now. We should use our present opportunity to put on that site a prototype or experimental House of Commons which could be built, if we wanted it done, by next August or September, quite easily. We have experience in this country in putting up buildings of a similar character. The size of such a House would be equal to a cinema seating from 1,000 to 1,500 persons, it would have a light steel frame, brick filling, asbestos roofs, and the best possible ventilation, lighting and acoustics that the modern mind can conceive. Those are the things we have to think about, and if we could get this building up, we could have an experimental period during the life of this Parliament to see how that House could be worked and the best way to carry on business. We could try various methods of seating the House, various methods of voting, and put an end to the waste of time and make it possible for every hon. Member comfortably to hear what the Ministers and other speakers were saying. We shall never get Ministers who are worth listening to until we can hear them properly. It is absolutely impossible on many occasions to hear the mumbling back-scratching that goes on between those two Front Benches.
While this is happening, I suggest that the whole accommodation of this House should be remodelled. There is plenty of space here to give adequate accommodation for all our needs and, if we employed good modern technicians we could, over the next four or five years, entirely remodel the whole accommodation of this House. At the end of that time we could decide upon the right sort of Parliament

Chamber, we could take the experimental building down, rebuild the old House of Commons and, I suggest, build an entirely new House on the gardens towards, I think, the South end of this building—a real, permanent, new House of Commons. Under those conditions it need not necessarily follow the architectural style of the present House. Hon. Members can go to Manchester and look at the new Manchester library associated with a gothic type building and see what a magnificent result is possible. We could build that House at the end of five years. It would take about four years to build and, at the end of that time, we would have a magnificent new House of Commons, two splendid Committee Rooms—this Chamber and the rebuilt House of Commons—and aremodelled Palace of Westminster. If we could have these rooms adequately planned and properly arranged it would be possible to carry on the procedure and business of this House in a businesslike and effective way, and that is what this Parliament is required to do now and in the future. We shall not be judged by the people of this country on the procedure that we adopt, we shall be judged by results, but we Members of the House of Commons, if we are to produce the right results, must have procedure and buildings which will make that possible.

5.53 p.m.

Mr. Stephen: It is always a pleasure for an old Member of this House to have the opportunity of congratulating a new Member on making his maiden speech. It is, in my case, with peculiar pleasure that I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. T. Braddock). Indeed, when I heard the first part of his speech, I wondered if there was much use my following him because, in the first part of his speech, he expressed very much what I myself would have liked to say in his eulogy of the Committee system, the extension of the Committee system, and the better use of hon. Members. I am sure the whole House was very interested in his speech, for the virility and the eloquence with which he set his ideas before us, and the vision that he had of what ought to be done if the present Government is to justify itself and the great ideas that are in the minds of the people with regard to its work. However I want to make a few comments in Spite of the excellent


statement of the hon. Member for Mitcham with regard to the Committee system. I have been in the House a long time. I came here when there was an overwhelming Tory majority in the House—

Major Lloyd: The good old days.

Mr. Stephen: —and in those days we very often had legislation put before us which was most objectionable to members of the Labour Party. I myself very often had to play a fairly strenuous part in trying to prevent much of that legislation going on to the Statute Book. I think at that time I contracted a technique of obstruction, but it had a very ill effect on me afterwards and tended to make me very prosy and slow in addressing the House. We had experience in those days of trying to prevent Tory legislation passing which we considered was not in the interests of the country, and I can quite well realise now, when I am anxious to see a Socialist Government put legislation on the Statute Book which will lead towards the realisation of Socialist ideals, that there have to be great changes in procedure, great changes in the way in which the Government of to-day handles the problems which have to be faced. After all, we live in a time when the function of Parliament is very different from what it was in the days that are past. Then, Parliament existed as an institution very largely to impose the taxation for the year—that was practically its main function. There was a certain amount of legislation dealing with the conditions of the people, but, in the main, the dominant political philosophy of the day was the philosophy of laissez faire, and there was a very widespread Tory and Liberal opinion in the country that the less the Government had to do with the ordinary affairs of business and the conditions of the people—apart from arranging a suitable system of taxation for carrying on the machinery which would provide the Government with its Armed Forces and its police forces—the better.
It is very different today. The Parliamentary machine of our time has to deal every day with new problems in connection with the conditions of the people. There has been a great volume of social legislation passed in the last 20 or 30 years, and the Parliamentary in-

strument required today is entirely different from the Parliamentary machine which in very large part we are still using, and which was created to meet the problems of the beginning of the 19th century. I remember, when I came here, the Father of the House, Mr. T. P. O'Connor, when some of us were feeling very vexed, and thinking how useless was much of the time we were spending in the Chamber, saying to us that he was surprised at our thinking that we could carry out legislation with the machinery that was the proper machinery for the beginning of the 19th century.
I welcome the indication that the Government today are going to try to make the machinery of the House of Commons adequate for the problems of our day. In my opinion, from the experience of having been in the House—except for the gap from 1931 to 1935—since 1922, there should be a possibility for Members to be much more intimately associated with the various Government Departments, by a system of committees, than is the case at the present time. I am sure that half of the difficulties in connection with many of the problems, that are already pressing most hardly on this Government, such as the problem of demobilisation, would have been greatly lightened if there had been a Commitee of this House meeting regularly with the Service Ministers to discuss it. However, we have not got that; but I hope that this Committee will hear the representatives of my own party, the Independent Labour Party, and will give full consideration to the ideas that were very largely those of an old Member of this House, the late Mr. F. W. Jowett.
The other maiden speech made a short time ago was also a very worthy one. I want to comment on one point in connection with it. The hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. M. Webb) said, "We do not want to make this House into a glorified town council." I am sure that there is general agreement that we do not want to make it into a glorified town council, but I would say to him, and to others, that a phrase like that is a very easy phrase to use, but we should remember that, while we do not want to make this House into a glorified town council, we do want to take advantage of what experience in town council machinery has shown to be very useful


in providing for the needs of the people.
With regard to the more immediate proposals before us, I think that they are very sound. It is obvious that there should be more Standing Committees to deal with Bills. How often have we seen four or five Bills waiting on the list to come before a particular Standing Committee? It was a very easy matter for some of us, who did not like a certain Bill on that list, to spend hours in a Standing Committee, on some colourless Bill, in order that we might block a Bill which was later on the list. I have seen that on many occasions. I hope that with the extension of the principle of Standing Committees the Government will be able to put through this House much legislation that is urgently required, in order to improve the conditions of the people.
There is one point I want to make, however, and that is that I am somewhat doubtful whether it is a sound proposition that the quorum of a Standing Committee should be only 15. I realise that the quorum for the House of Commons is 40 with a membership of 640. Perhaps that quorum could be with advantage increased to a much higher number for the House generally. But I wonder if with a Committee of 50 Members, 15 is an adequate number of persons to have as a quorum for that Committee in its consideration of a Bill. It certainly will make for expedition in getting Measures through, but there are many experiences of poor Parliamentary Secretaries getting sore feet, trudging round and round the building here, trying to drive up so many Government Members to a Committee, to get a Bill through. I remember when the Tories were extending the waiting period of the Unemployment Insurance Bill, and the Labour Party was making a valiant attempt to keep the waiting period at three days, how they were worn almost to a shadow in trying to hunt Tory Members into the Committees. I wonder whether this is not just too small a number for a quorum. I am not going to put down an Amendment to increase the number, but I think it might be worth while trying out; and I suggest to the Lord President of the Council that it is one of the points over which he should keep a careful watch. I hope that the Government in geting its proposals through,

will also get good Standing Committees, and that we shall have very many Measures put on the Statute Book.
I hope the Lord President of the Council will not get angry with me for making this last point. It is as a Scottish Member that I make it. Some of the Scottish Members think that Bills might be expedited here a great deal, if the Government would take this opportunity to have a certain amount of devolution, by allowing us, in Scotland, to manage our own affairs. It would save a lot of time in the House, and take away from the interest of the House in many ways, but I am sure it would be beneficial to Scotland, and I hope that this Committee, when considering the proposals will also have in mind the possibility of the Scottish Grand Committee being given greater powers, meeting in Scotland, and transacting much Scottish business, without making it necessary to come to this House for approval.

6.11 p.m.

Major Conant: I agree that the granting of Home Rule for Scotland might save more time to this House than the recommendations which we are now considering. The Committee were required to report on what alternatives they thought desirable for the more efficient despatch of public business, and they also had an instruction to report, as soon as possible, on a scheme for the acceleration of public Bills. This first report, which we are considering now, is concerned solely with the acceleration of public Bills and I would suggest that speed and efficiency do not always go hand in hand. I think, therefore, that we must consider this report, bearing the fact in mind, that efficiency is not always the complement of speed.
I would criticise these proposals not on the ground that they would not enable us to pass more legislation, and commit more crimes in consequence, but rather that they would reduce, to some extent, the time that should be given to the careful consideration of all proposals, and would limit consideration of the minority view. I have yet to learn that the country that passes the greatest number of laws, in the shortest possible time, is the country which is best governed. In the last six years, we have passed a vast number of laws, in a very short time, and, by co-operation, we have achieved results


which have astonished the whole world. Now that we have returned to party Government, we must expect, and I do not deny the right of the Government to introduce some controversial legislation; but I cannot but feel that the problems with which the Government have to deal are not so small that they can afford to dispense altogether with the co-operation of other parties, or the experience of minorities, even though they may be small in number.
I hope that the Government will accept the Amendments on the Order Paper in the name of my hon. and right hon. Friends, which are designed to increase the consideration given to the minority viewpoint. They would not, I think, open the door to obstruction, either from the Opposition or from the Government side. There is one point which is not, as I see it, covered by the Amendments, and that is a point of considerable importance in connection with the timetable. The Committee recommended that, when a timtable is proposed, the Guillotine Motion should take the form of the naming of a day by which a Standing Committee would have to report. The details, of course, would subsequently be allocated by a Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee. That, I think, is to be preferred to the proposal in the Government's Memorandum that an Emergency Business Committee, consisting of the Members of the Chairman's Panel, with others added, should undertake the whole allocation of time. I think that the Select Committee's proposal is much to be preferred, but it has this objection, that the fixing of a date by this House takes no account of the absence of a quorum on Standing Committee and this often happens in Standing Committee, as hon. Members are aware.
I would, therefore, suggest to the Government for consideration that the allocation of time order made by this House should be in hours and not by the fixing of a date. I do not think that would open the door to obstruction in any way because of the fact that the Government, particularly in this Parliament, can themselves always secure a Quorum. Unless this is done there is no certainty that the number of hours which the Government when they fixed the date considered necessary for the consideration

of a Bill is actually available for that purpose owing to the wastage of time caused by the absence of a Quorum. If it is decided as necessary that legislation should be speeded up, and I am not myself convinced of that fact, I believe that these recommendations represent a reasonable experiment which this House should try. I have yet to be convinced that there is any justification for speeding up legislation at this time. I do not believe that the way in which one can best secure an improvement in the conditions of the people is, as suggested by the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen), by the passage of Bills. I do not believe that, but I consider that these proposals are the best method of securing the end which the Government have in view.

6.17 p.m.

Mr. Bowles: I do not propose to occupy the House for long, but there is obviously a conflict of principle and outlook between Members on the other side of the House and the Government and their supporters on this. Hon. Members opposite have never been very anxious to get legislation passed. They are quite ready to go on the old rule of thumb principle, but we are anxious, in the course of the four or five years at our disposal, to put through as much important legislation as we can. It is obvious to anyone who has tried to study Parliamentary procedure that something on the lines of these recommendations is necessary. I was very glad that the hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) almost invited himself and his party to give evidence. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Sir R. Young) will consider that, because I am sure that the Members of the I.L.P. have had a lot of experience in obstruction and things of that kind, and their evidence as poachers turned gamekeepers might be invaluable, from the point of view of the next report which the Committee issues.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) thought that because the Standing Committee was so small—that it was now to be reduced to a maximum of 50 Members—it could not possibly be reflective of the experience of Members in this House, and he suggested that the Report stage should be longer. The hon. and gallant


Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) suggested that the Second Reading should be longer. They seem to me either to have conflicting reasons for suggesting that, or they have the same reasons. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington was wrong in suggesting what he did, because, after all, the Committee stage is to try and fit in, by the use of the proper words and phrases, the general intentions of this House as expressed in the Second Reading Debate, when the general principles of the Bill are agreed to by the House.
I should have thought that there was no point in having a longer Report stage if the Standing Committee has done its work properly, as I should have thought that they are concerned with the wording of the Bill line by line and word by word. Of the two suggestions I think I would more agree with the hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew that a longer time for Second Reading would probably be more useful. The Government point of view is obviously that they wish to try to get as much time of the House clear of long discussions as possible, and they do not particularly want long Second Reading Debates or long Report stage Debates or long Third Reading Debates. I should have thought that, having given a reasonable time, as we have done in the past—there has been no rushing of the Second Reading—the ordinary normal time given in the House was sufficient, so far as we have seen in this Parliament, for the House adequately to discuss on Second Reading the particular Measure before the House.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington referred to a speech by the Prime Minister in 1937 in which he was praising the activities and the work of this institution by saying that all Members from all sides of the House, having regard to their various experiences and points of view, helped to mould legislation. It was an effective quotation. On the other hand I wonder how far that would fit in with the present situation, when we find that the great majority of Members in this House are concerned to do things by legislative action which are literally revolting to Members on the other side of the House? They are not going to help us mould our legislation at all. They are going to try and stab it in the back as much as they possibly can. They

are going to hold it up, obstruct as much as they can, and the quotation of the Prime Minister's speech, coming, as it did, from the right hon. Gentleman, seemed to me rather inapt in view of the obstructive tactics which they will undoubtedly be up to as soon as they feel strong enough.

Sir John Mellor: Can the hon. Member give a single instance in which Members on this side of the House have obstructed the Government in their business so far?

Mr. Bowles: The Statutory Instruments Bill was one.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: On a point of Order. Is it in Order to suggest that Members on this side of the House have been guilty of obstruction, and is it in Order to refer in that way to proceedings before a Standing Committee, in which most of the time has been taken up by speeches of Socialist Ministers and Socialist Members?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. HUBERT BEAUMONT): It is not out of Order to make such a statement.

Mr. Bowles: Hon. Members opposite are already getting touchy. I was anticipating what the attitude of the hon. Member and his friends is likely to be in the near future.
I should like to put one point to the Leader of the House on the question of private Members' time. He will remember that I have raised the question with him on Business. When there is any Business which is followed by a Division, the right hon. Gentleman will remember that the time of the Adjournment is cut down by the amount of time occupied by the Division, which in the last few evenings has been something of the nature of 15 to 20 minutes. I hope he will consider bringing in some kind of statutory order giving hon. Members the full half hour in any event.
In this Report by the Select Committee there is reference to the inability to obtain enough reporting staff, and to the wages or salaries at present being paid by the Government. I well remember that during the last Parliament there was always too much readiness on the part of the Executive to resist reasonable proposals from hon. Members who were anxious to


do their job properly—that the Executive could not provide money, could not provide the paper, could not provide the labour and so forth. That is a completely unconstitutional argument for any Executive to put up to this House. The Executive's inability or unwillingness to pay something, or their refusal to stop calling up labour, should be no excuse for their disabling us from doing our job of work properly. I hope we shall hear no more about this inability or reluctance of the Government to pay the HANSARD reporting staff properly, in order to attract enough people of the great skill and ability that are necessary to enable them to do their job properly.
With reference to having a Debate on the Question, "That the Clause stand part," which is dealt with in the Report on page 8, paragraph 19, it is quite clear that in the event of there having been a reasonable discussion on an Amendment which has been lost, or even on the Question "That the Clause stand part," the Chairman has the right to prevent repetitive argument. Therefore the Government should accept the recommendation of the Committee in that respect.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew complained that these proposals would not really save the time of the House, and he used a curious expression that if it was not saving time of Members it was not saving the time of the House. That seems to me to mean nothing. What we mean by the time of the House is the number of Parliamentary days, and the fact that Members work a particular number of hours is not the same thing as saying that the time of the House is not being saved. It is obvious that if we divided ourselves up into say twelve Committees, working whole time, it would not save the time of the Members involved, but quite obviously the House of Commons and the Committees would get through a great deal more legislative work. The hon. and gallant Member finished his speech by regretting the tendency shown on the part of Front Bench speakers opposite to co-operate with the Government in this matter. We do not really expect their co-operation. If it is offered we shall look at it rather like looking a gift horse in the mouth. We know that they do not want us to

get on with our programme. What is here proposed is necessary to enable us to do so. I wish the Government every success in their programme, and I hope they will press on with it.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I hope the Government will press on with the broadest programme imaginable, and make use of all assistance they can get from the Select Committee in saving time and ensuring the passage of legislation. Whatever hon. Members on the opposite side of the House want in regard to legislation, no one can deny the fact that the broad masses of the people in this country want big changes, bigger than have been suggested so far, in economic and social conditions in this country, which will stagger hon. Members opposite. It will be necessary to adopt every possible means to get that legislation through. I hope that in any further recommendations they make the Select Committee will be much more radical. We do not want longer Second Reading Debates or longer Report stages. I suggest that when we have a Second Reading Debate, the example set in Scottish Debates should be followed, namely, that those who were introducing a particular Motion should get a fair amount of time, but that every other speaker should limit himself or herself to 15 minutes. If any one wants to speak for more than 15 minutes he should go and tell the Speaker—and then the Speaker should not call him.
I have heard it suggested, on what grounds I do not know, that I have spoken quite a lot in this House, but I am prepared to go through HANSARD with any Member, and I will guarantee he will not find more than two speeches, if there are two, of mine in which I have spoken for more than 15 minutes in any discussion. There has been a reference by the Leader of the House to the part of the Report in which the Select Committee discuss repetition. I have heard Members get up here and speak for 45 minutes; the next Member on the same side has got up and said that the hon. Member before him has mentioned all that there was to be said on the subject, and has then gone on to repeat all those things for another 45 minutes. Another thing which I hope will be prohibited by the Select Committee would be the Mem-


ber who gets up and says "I wish to detain only this House for a few minutes." The Speaker should crack down on him right away there and then.
Another thing that I am very much interested in is the Guillotine. I would like to see the Guillotine erected right there on the Floor of the House and I would make a job of the hon. Members on the other side. [Laughter.] Seriously, I hope that these propositions will be taken up and utilised to get the very best results in the way of providing new and better conditions for the people of the country. That is what we are here for. I am quite certain that these proposals are going to work out like that. The Select Committee mentioned the question of particular discussions on particular Clauses and particular Amendments not needing any further discussion on question "That the Clause stand part." In the Scottish Grand Committee, when we had discussed Clauses of Amendments we never took up any time on the question "That the Clause stand part." We Scottish Members know how to do business if we get a chance of doing it.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) says that I have a bee in my bonnet. I can only say that there are a lot of bees and a lot of bonnets in Scotland. We have, very occasionally, a Scottish day. I ask hon. Members to see what happens. You can hear hon. Members in the Lobbies asking each other, "What is on to-night?" And one says, "It is a Scottish night," so the other says, "Then I think I will go to a show. "That is general so far as the English and Welsh Members are concerned. There is an exodus from this House when they know it is a Scottish night. But look at the time that is given to us. We get three hours to discuss Scottish health, three hours to discuss Scottish housing, while other Members are going round London, maybe getting lost in the wilds of London. If that Scottish business had been discussed in Scotland, that day could have been used for other business. Take yesterday. I guarantee that if we had been discussing foreign policy in Austria, Yugoslavia, Greece or any other European country, the Members of this House would have understood more about what was being discussed than they understood yesterday about Tummel-Garry. They ask, "What is it?" and "Where is it?"

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I must point out to the hon. Member that he must be more relevant to the Motion under discussion.

Mr. Gallacher: I was illustrating how time is lost. I ask the Leader of the House if Scottish Members had been discussing the Tummel-Garry scheme in Edinburgh, at St. Andrew's House, what would have happened? The ordinary business would have been cleared up and a decision taken to send a Parliamentary delegation to Tummel-Garry to find out what was actually going on there.

The Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member cannot talk about Tummel-Garry on this Motion. He must address himself to the Motion before the House.

Mr. Gallacher: I am concluding my remarks now. I support the proposals of the Select Committee. I hope that hon. Members will do everything possible to see that Parliamentary work is expedited, so that the people can get what they expect to get, big changes for the better.

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Dryden Brook: Like many other new Members of this House I believe that I shall get the kind indulgence of the House on addressing it for the first time. I speak with mixed feelings, and I am inclined to agree with an hon. Member who addressed us earlier on from these benches and said that his impressions of the House were not very favourable up to date. I would not like in my present frame of mind to pass judgment on it but will leave it to the future to determine. But it has seemed to me with the Debates that I have so far listened to, that the depth and width of the gulf between the two sides of this House are obvious. The party opposite seem to approach every social question from the point of view of looking backwards, whereas we on this side of the House must look forward.
One hon. Member on the opposite side said earlier that he could not see any need for the mass of legislation which the Government intended to try to put through this Session. He said it was only in the interest of the Government, and not in the interest of the people. The same hon. Member went back to the Bank Charter Act of 1840 for an illustration of the point of view he wanted to put forward, and he told us that when


that Act was passing through this House, there were seven days in which to discuss it. I would like to remind the Members of this House that many things have happened since then. In the first place, the speed of change has tremendously accelerated, and if this Parliament of ours does not keep pace with that change, then Parliamentary institutions will fall into disrepute, and hon. Members who try to delay the pace of the change will inevitably help that fall into disrepute of the institution of which they think so much. I remember that in the Debate when the Select Committee was set up, a good deal of play was made of the statement made by the Home Secretary when he referred to criticism having brought democracy into disrepute, or words to that effect. If he had used the word "talk" he would have been absolutely right, because wherever you look in the world in the last 20 years or so, if there is one thing more than any other which has been the cause of the downfall of many democratic institutions it is the fact that those countries have been unable, by talk, to meet the needs of the common people.
The 19th century saw tremendously important developments in the social life of this country and one of them was the emergence of the positive State. I would like to ask this House to consider the implications of that emergence. It is 30 odd years since I read Professor Dicey's book on the law and constitution of this country, but I believe he remarked that in the last quarter of the 19th century there had been a development of collectivism and that collectively the people had been able to do better things for themselves even in those spheres that have hitherto been left to the individual. If you look at the history of the middle of the 19th century, to which reference has already been made, what do you find was the attitude of Parliament towards the life of the people in those days? The attitude of Parliament was simply that of keeping a ring for the individuals who were trying to help their own interests.
The positive and fundamental belief of the Members on this side of the House is that the State and the community as a whole have positive responsibility for the welfare of every individual citizen. If you want an illustration of that you have it in the development

of the poor law from its early days, and through it various phases until it has become the social welfare institution of this country. Or you have it in the examples which Sir William Beveridge gave in his report about the growth of the social services in this country from their very small beginnings to the high figure which they reach at the present time. Another revolution has been the emergence of industrial control. The fact is that the Factory Acts in the middle of last century saw developing in the legislation of this country a system capable of infinite expansion. From being merely negative you have their emergence to a positive relation between the State and the individual. In order to illustrate the relations in this country purely from the business side, the right hon. Gentleman who is at present representing this country at Washington has said:
Modern capitalism is absolutely irreligious, without internal union, without much public spirit, often though not always mere congeries of pursuers and pursued.
I ask hon. Members opposite: is it possible to allow a system without moral basis to run untrammelled through a society such as ours, and, if not, does it not come down to this, that Parliament is responsible for exercising some kind of control over all industrial organisations in the interests of the welfare of humanity?
I have been struck in several Debates in this House by the care and solicitude which hon. Members opposite have had for my political soul as a new Member of this House. It has seemed to me that in that care they have shown such a tremendous belief in the traditions, the institutions and the procedure of this House, that they themselves are in greater danger than the new Members on this side. Their danger is that they look upon the traditions, the institutions and the procedure as ends in themselves, rather than as means to an end. The institutions and the traditions of this House, of this Parliament, are not an end in themselves but means to an end, and Parliament will be judged not by the love which hon. Members feel for them but by their capacity to serve the ends for which they came into being.
This Parliament of ours has a glorious tradition. It began by serving the interests of the barons, then of the landed aristocracy and then of the indus-


trialists. In our age it must serve the interests of the common people. The growth of our Parliament is one of the glories of this country. It has continually been expanded in order to meet the needs of the various kinds of people who have dominated it. This is the age of the common man, according to the words of the former President of the United States of America, but the requirements of that age can only be met by fundamental changes in the social structure of this country. Two and a half years ago I had the privilege of reading the farewell letter of a young airman who gave his life for this country, and in that farewell message were these words, written to his parents:
Thank you for all the ideals you have given me. I can only hops that my end has not been in vain and that you will live to see the realisation of some of those ideals in happier times.
That lad was brought up in a Socialist household. I know from contact with him that the ideals of which he spoke were socialist ideals. It is not merely because the people of this country sent this party to the House of Commons to effect Socialist Measures, but it is because hon. Members on this side of the House must keep faith with the lads who have offered their lives in order to achieve those ideals, that we believe in accelerating the passing of legislation through this House. It is not merely because it is in the interests of the Government, but because we believe it is in the interests of the people of this country as a whole.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: My first and very pleasant duty is to congratulate my hon. Friend who has just resumed his seat on a maiden speech to which I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the House have greatly enjoyed listening. We are pleased that he took part in the Debate, and we very much hope that we shall hear him from time to time on other subjects and on other occasions.
I would like to thank the House very much for the generally friendly way in which the proposals of the Select Committee and of His Majesty's Government have been received. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) said that it would not be unreasonable to expect rather more time allocated for the Report stages of Bills if the practice of sending nearly all

Bills to Standing Committees upstairs was pursued. I think, in principle, that is a fair point for consideration, and I have no doubt, as was revealed in the evidence, that Mr. Speaker will give proper weight to that consideration. I agree it would not be improper—indeed, it would be right—that the Government, if they make a Guillotine on Committee upstairs, and Report downstairs, should also take that point into account. As to the degree to which it should be taken into account, and its consequences on the time on the Report stage, there might be room for differences of opinion, but I agree that if a Committee stage is taken in Committee upstairs the rights of the House are rather more pronounced on the Report stage than if the Committee stage is taken in a Committee of the whole House.
The right hon. Gentleman thought, in relation to that argument, that it would be better to have some higher upper limit in regard to the Committees, but we are proposing that the upper limit should be 50. I think the upper limit—and I will be corrected if I am wrong—was about 70 or 75. I cannot see that the difference of 25 Members would really affect the argument as to the length of the Report stage. I think there is an argument as to whether it is upstairs or downstairs, but I would not have thought that to that extent it is material. While I do not in the least wish to be intolerant of suggestions, I do think if we are going to increase the number of Standing Committees upstairs, that it is inevitable that we shall have to reduce the numbers of each of the Standing Committees below their present considerable maximum, otherwise we shall not have enough Members to spread round.
The other point is that I am bound to say from my own experience that, taking the Committee stage for what it is—namely, a somewhat detailed examination of the Bill—I think 75 Members are rather a large body of folk to form a Committee, and it is substantially bigger than quite a number of the full councils of municipal corporations in various parts of the country. I think, therefore, that 50 is reasonable, but we will watch, in the light of experience, whether it works or not, and the Government will watch whether the Government majority is enough to give sufficient cover for mishaps which may happen from time to


time in Standing Committees upstairs. Therefore, we will all watch how it goes in the light of experience.
The right hon. Gentleman put an argument, with which I do not agree, on an aspect of the matter which was dealt with in evidence before the Select Committee; namely, that it was proposed to keep Finance Bills and Bills of first-class constitutional importance on the Floor. I hope I do not misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman when I say that I think he was seeking to argue that in the modern kind of legislation affecting economics, Bills which provide for considerable economic change—for example, the socialisation of industries—are, in principle, Bills raising first-class constitutional issues. I think he was arguing that point, and that therefore they ought to be dealt with on the Floor. I do not agree that if Parliament, upon the advice of the Government, proceeds to transfer the ownership of private industries to public ownership, and to convert capitalist industries to socialized industries, it is a constitutional change. It is a considerable change and, I believe, a beneficial change. However, that is a matter of opinion. I do not accept the view that it is a constitutional change. It is deciding that in economic affairs the country will get its living in one way instead of in another, but I do not think that is of constitutional importance.
The right hon. Gentleman, in making that argument, was rather falling back into the earlier state of mind of the Conservative Party, in which they took the view that anything which in any way impaired the free working of the capitalist system of production and distribution was in itself revolutionary and involved constitutional revolutionary doctrine. An argument about how best a nation can get a living does not in any way involve revolution one way or another. It involves an issue of good sense for which there are arguments for and against, but I do not agree that it involves issues of first-class constitutional importance, although the issue can be exciting from time to time. Let us hope the issues will be exciting as the House gets on with its work.
The right hon. Gentleman said, quite rightly, that it is hoped to start on the basis of a fair trial, and that it will not

be assumed that the Opposition are going to be obstructive. I have been a Member of this House o nand off—on, now, for quite a good time; I have been lucky—and I have seen a good deal of parliamentary obstruction. I am bound to say that up to now, in this Parliament, I have seen very little of it, if any, but mind you I have not been upstairs and I do not know what has been going on up there. I am bound to say I have seen little or no obstruction on the Floor of the House in this present Parliament. It may be that the Opposition are finding their feet. They have had power for a long time and it may be they have not yet got into form. I would only say about the business upstairs, and indeed with regard to obstruction down below, that I have always felt, whether in the Government or in Opposition, obstruction can be a pretty childish and disgusting business from the point of view of the dignified conduct of parliamentary affairs. I entirely agree that if a Government is utterly tyrannical and terrible, and is doing things which it is reasonably clear that the body of public opinion is against, the Opposition are rendering a public service by obstructing that Government for all it is worth. On the other hand, if the Government are acting within the limits of reason—although the view may be taken that it is wrong—and within the realm of the Mandate that it has got, it is open to question as to whether it is dignified for speeches to continue to be made and Amendments moved which, as everyone would recognise, have no serious purpose at all. It makes Parliament look rather foolish, and in those circumstances I hope we have finished with that sort of Parliament altogether. I do not believe it is good, and I do not believe it is useful.

Mr. Osbert Peake: May I interrupt the right hon. Gentleman? He was speaking of the conduct of Standing Committees upstairs. I hope when he is studying this subject, his attention will be drawn to the Standing Committee on the Industrial Injuries Insurance Bill, where I have had to make the most moving appeals for some progress on the Committee stage in face of continual speeches from his own supporters.

Mr. Morrison: I have a hazy recollection of having heard rumours to that effect concerning Standing Committee "A"


upstairs. In the light of what the right hon. Gentleman says—I know him too well to believe that he would deliberately mislead me—I will certainly make further inquiries. In these Standing Committees—I am talking about Standing Committees in particular, because a bit of fun in the full House is more understandable, and it is very enjoyable—in the handling of the Bills from day to day, and in particular in the making of decisions concerning the Clauses within the overall Guillotine, I hope very much that there will be a spirit of good sense, co-operation and give and take. If that tradition can start, develop and be maintained it will go through many parliaments and possibly for all time. I am not in any way suggesting that we should not quarrel, nor metaphorically knock each other about and give and take hard blows in debate. I am all for it. In fact, I do not think we have had enough first-class rows in this Parliament, but that is another matter. I am, therefore, not repeating Mr. Ramsay MacDonald's appeal for a Council of State, which I thought was nonsense at the time and which I would not advocate in this Parliament. But Committee work is Committee work, and I would like the spirit of Committee work conducted so that there is give and take on both sides—brief speeches, mutual tolerance and all-round consideration.
With regard to the work of allocating the time of the Standing Committee within the overall Guillotine period, I would say this. I hope that the Ministers, the leaders and Members on the Government side of the Committee constituting the majority will recognise that in that particular matter, on balance, the minority or the Opposition have somewhat more rights to consideration than have the majority. It is they who are the potential critics. It is their liberty of unrestricted opposition that is being limited. They are being somewhat fettered in their style in the discharge of a duty, because the Opposition have a duty to be critical, and I think that on balance the Opposition are entitled to somewhat more consideration than the majority. If the Committees will try to handle the matter in that spirit, and the Opposition will try to conduct themselves in Committee style, I believe that, under this new era, we can build up Standing Committee that will work on business lines, leaving the rather more free-for-all controversies for the Report

stage and Third Reading on the Floor of the House.
Therefore, I reciprocate in spirit what was said by the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden). He wanted me to consider whether we would not make allowances for the absense of a quorum on Standing Committees. I do not want to do that, because so often in the past one has gone past a Standing Committee room and found quite a number of hon. Members standing outside deliberately preventing a quorum from being formed. I do not think that is a very good practice. Committees must realise that there is an obligation on Members of both sides to make up the necessary quorum, and I should be sorry to concede the point asked by the right hon. Gentleman, because it might encourage the old practice to persist. The right hon. Gentleman said that the success of these new proposals will depend largely on how the Government apply them, and he gave me a little good advice, a moral homily, on how I should conduct myself as Leader of the House, which I will certainly try to live up to; but I agree that the success of this plan will depend a great deal upon the spirit in which the Government and the majority apply it. I would add also that its success will depend to a great extent on the Opposition. It is for both of us to play our part and make our contribution in order that it shall succeed. The Report of the Select Committee on procedure is itself, up to now, really an example of good sense obtaining and of expedition, and a sensible Report has come before the House. Let that spirit continue.
The hon. Member for Harwich (Sir S. Holmes) gave us a considerable speech on Private Members' time, Private Members' motions, and Private Members' Bills. If he will forgive me for saying so, I could not see that it was very closely related to the matter we are discussing to-day, and perhaps we might consider that on some other day when it is really relevant.

Sir J. Stanley Holmes: Would the right hon. Gentleman allow me to point out that we are discussing alterations in the procedure of the House? Part of the procedure for many generations has been the right of Private Members to certain


time. This right is now being taken away from them, and surely that is a matter which is relevant to this Debate.

Mr. Morrison: No, Sir, this Report deals with a part of the procedure of the House with respect to public business. It is not a Report about Private Members' time at all, and whilst the hon. Member's speech was obviously in Order I should get off the main track of the argument if I attempted to follow him.
I am very sorry that I missed the maiden speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Webb), I am sure that I should have much enjoyed it and I am exceedingly sorry that I missed it. It is due to this evil habit of Ministers going to have a cup of tea. I forgot that it was likely that my hon. Friend was coming into the Debate, otherwise I would certainly have been here, I would also have been here for the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock), which unfortunately I missed. It is true that the hon. Member for Central Bradford made a maiden speech, but they were certainly not maiden observations about Parliamentary affairs or Parliamentary business, because we have read, from time to time, at least I have, his able and witty observations on our Parliamentary business, and with great pleasure. He is no stranger to Parliamentary business and Parliamentary procedure. He comes here very well endowed, for he was one of the most distinguished of our bright and brilliant Lobby correspondents, and was already familiar with the procedure of the House. I am exceedingly sorry that I missed his speech. My hon. Friend, in his observations, expressed the hope that the public will recognise that they place a very considerable physical burden on Members of Parliament. I think he is quite right. If a Member of Parliament does his duty, does his share of Committee work and work on the Floor of the House and in writing to his constituents, it is a pretty heavy life. Many Members of Parliament manage to do other things as well, and in my own view it is good that they should have something else to do, because if this were a cloistered place, Members of Parliament having no living and running contact with the world outside, it would be a pity. But that is a personal view.

Nevertheless we recognise that the burdens upon our Members of Parliament are considerable.
My hon. Friend suggested to the Government that it will be necessary in the future to plan its legislative programme carefully and in advance. I entirely agree. My own impression is that nearly all legislative programmes, nearly all King's Speeches, of all Governments, of all parties, have been largely accidental aggregations, largely a matter of catch-as-catch-can on the eve of the Session, and then the legislation tends not to be ready. As I conceive it, if a party has control of Parliament and has a constructive job it not only ought to draw up a legislative programme for the Session but for the Parliament, and, indeed, plan it beyond that Parliament into the next one, in anticipation of winning the next Election, as we anticipate that we shall. Moreover, the decisions must be reached earlier in the year than hitherto, so that the Bills can be ready. This is one of our troubles—that, inevitably, not sufficient Bills could be ready, though we have not done badly with the number of Bills we have produced in quite a short time. But we must produce them earlier, so that the flow of legislation can be more even and we can plan the legislative programme of the Session far better. Therefore I am entirely sympathetic to the observations of my hon. Friend upon that point.
He said he was opposed to turning Parliament into a glorified town council. I understand from his argument that he did not want to over committee-ise the House, that the House as a corporate physical entity must maintain its being, and that only on certain occasions, on certain days of the week, should we adjourn the House in order that the Committees upstairs might get on with their work. In spirit I agree. It is a great mistake to draw a close analogy between Parliamentary government and municipal government; they are very different. Both have their virtues—I should be the last to say that local government has not its virtues—but it is no good drawing automatic deductions. Local government and Parliamentary government are entirely different, as many hon. Members who have spent a considerable time on town councils find when they come to Parliament, and are disconcerted to note the differences between the two systems.
The hon. and gallant Member for East Renfrew (Major Lloyd) wanted longer periods for Second Reading as well as longer Report stages. With great respect I cannot quite see that that is a fair request. The hon. Member for Mitcham (Mr. Braddock), whom I congratulate very warmly on his maiden speech, said that he found himself not overworked but, on the contrary, with not enough to do. I am very glad to hear it, because the Whips will no doubt take notice and see that he is put on an additional number of Standing Committees. I like hon. Members not to exaggerate their labours, nor to minimise them. He said that accommodation was very important and wanted a proper lay-out of Parliament, and went on to advocate a great building like a cinema that would hold 1,000. He said we should make it comfortable and a place in which it was easy to hear Ministers who were apt to drone and whisper on the Front Bench.
I sympathise with him about Ministers who do not talk up enough. Sometimes one gets in the habit of talking to the Front Bench opposite and forgets the rest of the House. This is very bad; I have been told about it myself and I put my head on the block and I apologise to the House very much indeed. But if this House were to meet in a place like a cinema, I think it would be just awful. I like this smallish building where you finish up a Debate with a crowd at that end and at this, and it is all very exciting; it is only after you have experienced that sort of thing that you become opposed to a large Chamber.
The hon. Member for Camlachie (Mr. Stephen) was glad to see that the Government intend to adapt the Parliamentary procedure to modern needs and to carry through a great Socialist plan. We are very glad to have that observation. He was very doubtful about reducing the quorum from 20 to 15. It seems to be logical, as it did to the Select Committee, that, if you reduce the maximum membership from 75 to 50, it is not unreasonable to reduce the quorum from 20 to 15. If the quorum is unduly large, it may add to the difficulties of getting a Committee started, just as there have been difficulties before. I am inclined to think that the proposal is right, although the hon. Gentleman does not agree. The hon. and gallant Member for Bewdley

(Major Conant) wants quality and not speed, but I gather that he is not too shocked about the proposals of the Government that are before the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Bowles) is obviously anxious that there shall soon be a flare-up between hon. and right hon. Members opposite and the Government. We all sympathise with him, and we will see what we can do about it. If I can give any under-taking to do anything to start it, we will have a go. I really must make a note of this. I shall have to see the Chief Whip and go into this and see what we can do. The hon. Member for West Fife (Mr. Gallacher) was anxious to erect a Guillotine in the middle of the floor of the Chamber to deal with hon. Members opposite. I am certain that, if a Guillotine was put there and the hon. Member was told, "Now start your bloody work," he would weaken in the faith, and would say, "Please, I would rather not. I rather like the chap."

Earl Winterton: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is using the term "bloody" in its old sense and not in its modern sense.

Mr. Morrison: I was using it in its proper sense, but the hon. Member for West Fife gets milder every week and I am shocked at the way he is developing a highly nationalist outlook and is becoming petite bourgeoisie in character. If he goes on with these nationalist tendencies, and this excessive good fellowship to all on earth, I shall think that he is not a revolutionary any longer. It almost makes one desirous of joining the Trotsky-ists out of hand. I can only say once more that I am grateful to Members in all parts of the House for the general friendliness with which these proposals have been received.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved:
That this House doth agree with the Committee in the general recommendations contained in their Report.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That—

(1) For the remainder of this Session paragraph 1 of Standing Order No. 47 shall read, 'As many Standing Committees shall be appointed as may be necessary for the consideration of Bills or other Business committed to a Standing Committee, and the procedure in


those Committees shall be the same as in a Select Committee, unless the House otherwise order. On a Division being called in the House, the Chairman of a Standing Committee shall suspend the proceedings in the Committee for such time as will, in his opinion, enable the members to vote in the Division. Any notice of an Amendment to a Bill which has been committed to a Standing Committee shall stand referred to the Standing Committee. The quorum of a Standing Committee shall be 15. Strangers shall be admitted to a Standing Committee except when the Committee shall order them to withdraw.'
(2) For the remainder of this Session Standing Order No. 48 shall read, 'Each of the said Standing Committees shall consist of twenty members, to be nominated by the Committee of Selection, who shall have regard to the composition of the House; and shall have power to discharge members from time to time, for non-attendance or at their own request, and to appoint others in substitution for those discharged. Provided that, for the consideration of all public Bills relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, the Committee shall be so constituted as to comprise all Members sitting for constituencies in Wales and Monmouthshire. The Committee of Selection shall also have power to add not more than 30 members to a Standing Committee in respect of any Bill referred to it. to serve on the Committee during the consideration of such Bill, and in adding such members shall have regard to their qualifications. Provided that this Order shall not apply to the Standing Committee on Scottish Bills.'
(3) (a) A Standing Committee to whom a Bill has been committed shall meet to consider that Bill on such days of the week (being days on which the House sits) as may be appointed by the Standing Committee at half past ten o'clock and, if not previously adjourned, at one o'clock the Chairman shall adjourn the Committee without Question put:
Provided that the first meeting of a Standing Committee to consider a Bill shall be at half past ten o'clock on a day to be named by the Chairman of the Committee.
(b) Government Bills referred to a Standing Committee shall be considered in whatever order the Government may decide.
(c) Nothing in this Order shall prevent a Standing Committee meeting at hours additional to those set out in sub-paragraph (a) of this Order."—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

7.15 p.m.

Colonel Sir Charles MacAndrew: I beg to move, in line 16, leave out from the second "time," to "and," in line 17.
The object of the Amendment is simple. Under this new arrangement the nucleus of the Standing Committee is to be reduced from 40 to 20. Four Standing Committees—A, B, C and D—have been set up with 40 Members, and the membership will have to be reduced to 20 by the Committee of Selection. We can

only do that under two heads, first, if hon. Members ask to be taken off and secondly, if they do not attend. This is to give power to reduce the main body of the Standing Committee.

Colonel Ropner: I beg to second the Amendment.

Mr. H. Morrison: The point raised comes under the existing Standing Order which is being continued. The Committee of Selection can discharge Members from a Standing Committee for specific reasons—for non-attendance or because Members themselves wish to be discharged. It would be necessary under these proposals to discharge some Members of the Standing Committee, to bring the numbers down whether they have attended or not, and perhaps whether they wish to stay on or not. The proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman is that the Committee of Selection should have a general power to discharge Members, it being understood that they shall exercise that power in co-operation and with good sense. I think that that is the purpose of the Amendment and that it is a sensible Amendment. I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Gentleman and, I propose, if the House agrees, to accept it.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The next Amendment and the one that follows might be discussed together,

7.18 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I beg to move, in line 21, to leave out "more," and to insert "less."
As you have said, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I think it would be convenient to take this and the next Amendment together. They are concerned with the size of the Standing Committees. The present position is that to the nucleus of the Committee of 40 there is power to add another 35, and you must add a minimum of 10. The total size of the Committee under the Standing Order is 50, and a maximum of 75. These two Amendments together would have the effect that the Committee would have not less than 30 but not more than 50, and accepting the new nucleus of 20, that would make the size of the Standing Committees proposed to be set up vary between 50 and 70. The argument with which I support that is that


the generally increased responsibilities which devolve upon the Standing Committee suggest that the present minima will be too low. We ought to have at least 50 Members as a minimum in our Standing Committees if these Committees are to handle more work than they do at the present time, and also Bills of greater range and scope. The whole object of the changes in Standing Orders is to enable the Standing Committee more and more to undertake the burden previously borne by a Committee of the Whole House. If that be so, it means that Bills of much greater range and scope must be sent Upstairs than have hitherto customarily been committed to Standing Committees.
The Lord President of the Council just now told us that these Bills whereby the Government propose to effect very fundamental changes in the structure of our economics were not, in his view, matters of great constitutional importance such as to limit them to the Floor of the House. He has told us that we shall have upstairs Bills of very great importance. I think the proposal to limit the maximum of the Standing Committee Members to 50 does not show a proper appreciation of the contribution which Parliament can make to legislation. It is in fact on the Committee stage of a Bill, and there only, that the average Member of Parliament gets an opportunity to make his full contribution. The number of hon. Members who try to catch the Speaker's eye during a Second Reading Debate is always greatly in excess of the number who succeed in doing so, and many an hon. Member has sat through a Debate with a speech, carefully prepared, in his pocket and gone home with it.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen…
Where the hon. Member gets a chance to influence the course of events is in the Committee stage of a Bill, and there only. It is equally true that on the Report stage and Third Reading the ordinary Member of this House, unless he is very lucky, gets little chance. Upstairs, he can bring his local knowledge to bear, and the constitutional importance of Parliament is a territorial one. It calls together into this Chamber, and into the Committees, hon. Members from every corner of the United Kingdom, Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and the result is that we do get British

legislation when they are allowed the chance in Committee to express themselves.
I do not think that if this proposal before us is followed and a limit of 50 is imposed on a Standing Committee, no matter how important the Bill may be, that we shall get that national outlook and national contribution brought to our discussions. After all, 50 is about one-twelfth of the Members of the House and 50 is to be the maximum—the number may be less. Surely, a twelfth should be the minimum, and the Government should not bind themselves now but should leave-sufficient elasticity in the future, for a Bill of great importance, to have a total in Standing Committee of 70. You cannot say here that we shall not have remitted to Standing Committees Bills of such a range and scope, that a Committee with 50 Members would be quite unable adequately to cover them. There is no stifling Parliament; no possibility of that. The problem of the Government and of all of us in trying to amend our procedure, is that we are up against the eloquence or loquacity of Parliament, and some of the proposals for timetables and so on, although they may have their uses, are rather like Mrs. Partington trying to sweep out the Atlantic with a mop.
I would like the Government to leave that elasticity I have spoken of, so that for a small technical Bill on which only a few experts need be gathered together and which is relatively non-controversial, you could have a small Standing Committee. But, if you are going to use the Standing Committee, then it should be of a size and universality capable of standing the burden you propose to put upon it. Otherwise I am certain the scheme will not work. I do not think anyone can say that this minimum I am proposing is too high. I cannot imagine why the Government should not set themselves the task of giving us a Committee of 50, with power to add, and I am quite sure that if the Government persist in this course, they will be asking the great bulk of Members of Parliament to abrogate their functions of discussing Bills in Committee and I am sure that the end of that procedure will be worse for Parliament than its beginning.

7.25 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: I have listened with very great care and attention to


what the right hon. Gentleman has said. His concluding argument was that we were in danger under this proposal of a maximum of 50 Members of leaving a considerable number of Members without adequate opportunities of Committee work upstairs. We have all had experience of attending these Committees upstairs, and it is, of course, the case that it is not every Member who can serve on Committees upstairs. That has to be assumed to begin with. What the proportion is of Members who cannot, through their own affairs, serve on Committees upstairs, I do not know, but it will be a fair proportion. Secondly, it must be remembered that in addition to Standing Committees, there will be Select Committees from time to time. These also have their work to do, which occupies many Members. Then the political and Parliamentary responsibilities of Members vary very much indeed. Therefore, I would not have thought that this provision of 50 would have created any danger of manufacturing Parliamentary unemployment amongst the Members of the House.
It seems to the Government that the proposal that is before the House is right. It did represent the majority view of the Select Committee upstairs. Indeed, in order to work a new system of additional Standing Committees, it is necessary to limit the size of the Committees. Even in the case of a highly important Bill, I am inclined to think that 50 is a good number to examine it, because a Bill has to come down here for consideration thereafter. I think a Committee with 20 permanent Members and 30 added for the purposes of the Bill is an appropriate number—is not too small and is not too large for Bills of some substance. It might be too large for what the right hon. Gentleman calls a limited technical Bill but even for an important Bill I do not think it would be too small. In the circumstances I hope that the right hon. Gentleman would not press the Amendment. In any case, it is an amendment of which I could not ask the House to approve.

7.28 p.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Surely we are only making provision here for a minimum and a maximum. If you do not give proper representation to the minority parties in this

House, then a great deal is lost in discussion in Committee stage, and if you restrict the Committees to 50, it seems to me possible that minority opinion will not be properly represented on Committees. We are only asking for a minimum.

Mr. H. Morrison: I do not think the Noble Lord is in any way intending to confuse the House on the issue, but he will appreciate that, whatever the number is, we would seek to give the Opposition a fair share on the Committee.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: If you have seven Standing Committees in operation, each of 50, you are going to spread the minority opinion in the House almost to vanishing point. Clearly there will be many occasions when all these Standing Committees will not in fact be meeting; you may only have two or three Committees meeting at the same time. To say that there must be only 50 Members on, each of the Standing Committees is to give no chance to other Members of the House to participate in the functions of the Standing Committees. My right hon. Friend referred to that point, and the Lord President of the Council took it up and said he desired that Members should have a full opportunity to participate in the work of the House. If only two or three Standing Committees are sitting, how are Members to take their part in the activities of the Committees? I do not think that the Government's answer to the Amendment is adequate, and I join with my hon. Friends in asking for its reconsideration.

7.31 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: I wish to put the case of two very small minorities of about a dozen Members, and if the Standing Committees are to be constituted as is proposed none of us can expect to see more than one of those Members on any one of those Committees. In the case of the illness of that Member, that particular party will be put out of representation altogether. Were the number of the Standing Committee increased to 70, the minorities might have two Members on the Committee and the strain upon those Members would then not be so great. If the Lord President of the Council thinks, as he said a few minutes ago, that the minorities should have the benefit of any opportunities, then it is almost logical that he should find himself disposed


to accept the Amendment. On behalf of the small minorities I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to give way on this matter.

7.32 p.m.

Sir Robert Young: I apologise for intervening, but it seems to me that the Amendment now before the House would make very little difference to the Standing Committees as they exist now. We are suggesting a Committee of 20, with 30 added, making 50 Members. It is not usually understood that the supplementary composition of the Committee is purely permissive. If the Selection Committee put on the full complement, the number would be 50, and that, we think, is a very fair number. During the consideration of the Select Committee it was stated that about 200 Members of the House would not be available for these Standing Committees. If you take 200 from 640, without allowing for absences,

and if you have seven Committees with 50 each, we can see what the position will be. We shall need 350Members for the Committees out of just over 400 Members. The position would be very difficult if the membership of the Committee were increased to 75. Very few Committees under the present Standing Orders, except the Scottish Committee, have so large a number. The Selection Committee can appoint 40 Members instead of 50 and then increase its number to 60 by additional Members, under the present Standing Orders. The reduction of the number to 50 was a consequence of the fact that they would not have sufficient Members to supply more than seven Committees at a time.

Question put, "That the word 'more' stand part of the Question, as amended."

The House divided: Ayes, 258; Noes, 123.

Division No. 20.]
AYES.
[7.37 p.m.


Adamson, Mrs. J. L.
Daines, P.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Haworth, J.


Alien, Scholefield (Crewe)
Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)


Alpass, J. H.
Davies, Harold (Leek)
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)


Anderson, A. (Motherwell)
Deer, G.
Herbison, Miss M.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
de Freitas, Geoffrey
Hewitson, Captain M.


Attewell, H. C.
Delargy, Captain H. J.
Holman, P.


Austin, H. L.
Diamond, J.
Horabin, T. L.


Awbery, S. S.
Donovan, T.
House, G.


Ayles, W. H.
Douglas, F. C. R.
Hoy, J.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Driberg, T. E. N.
Hubbard, T.


Bacon, Miss A.
Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)


Balfour, A.
Dumpleton, C. W.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)


Barstow, P. G.
Durbin, E. F. M.
Janner, B.


Barton, C.
Dye, S.
Jeger, Capt. G. (Winchester)


Battley, J. R.
Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)


Belcher, J. W.
Edelman, M.
John, W.


Berry, H.
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Keenan, W.


Binns, J.
Evans, S. N. (Wednesbury)
Kenyon, C.


Blenkinsop, Capt. A.
Ewart, R.
Key, C. W.


Blyton, W. R.
Farthing, W. J.
Kinley, J.


Boardman, H.
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Lavers, S.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Follick, M.
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Foot, M. M.
Lee, F. (Hulme)


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Forman, J. C.
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Leslie, J. R.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Fraser, T. (Hamilton)
Lever, Fl. Off. N. H.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Freeman, P. (Newport)
Levy, B. W.


Brown, W. J. (Rugby)
Gaitskell, H. T. N.
Lewis, J. (Bolton)


Bruce, Maj. D. W. T.
Gallacher, W.
Lewis, T. (Southampton)


Buchanan, G.
Ganley, Mrs. C. S.
Lindgren, G. S.


Burden, T. W.
George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.


Burke, W. A.
Gibson, C. W.
Little, Dr. J.


Byers, Lt.-Col. F.
Glanville, J. E. (Consett)
Longden, F.


Champion, A. J.
Gooch, E. G.
Lyne, A. W.


Chetwynd, Capt. G. R.
Gordon-Walker, P. G.
McAdam, W.


Clitherow, R.
Grey, C. F.
Mack, J. D.


Cluse, W. S.
Grierson, E.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)


Cocks, F. S.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
McKinlay, A. S.


Coldrick, W.
Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)
Maclean, N. (Govan)


Collins, V. J.
Gruffydd, Prof. W. J.
McLeavy, F.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Gunter, Capt. R. J.
MacMillan, M. K.


Cook, T. F.
Guy, W. H.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)
Mann, Mrs. J.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Marshall, F. (Brightside)


Corvedale, Viscount
Hardy, E. A.
Mathers, G.




Mayhew, Maj. C. P.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.
Tolley, L.


Medland, H. M.
Robens, A.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Messer, F.
Roberts, G. O. (Caernarvonshire)
Turner-Samuels, M.


Middleton, Mrs. L.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)
Ungoed-Thomas, Maj. L.


Mitchison, Maj. G. R.
Rogers, G. H. R.
Usborne, H. C.


Monslow, W.
Sargood, R.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


Montague, F.
Scollan, T.
Viant, S. P.


Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Scott-Elliot, W.
Wadsworth, G.


Morris, R. H. (Carmarthen)
Segal, Sqn.-Ldr. S.
Walkden, E.


Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.
Walker, G. H.


Murray, J. D.
Shawcross, Cmdr. C. N. (Widnes)
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Nally, W.
Silverman, J. (Erdington)
Watson, W. M.


Naylor, T. E.
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Skinnard, F. W.
Weitzman, D.


Noel-Buxton, Lady
Smith, Capt. C. (Colchester)
Wells, Maj. W. T. (Walsall)


Oliver, G. H.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke)
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Orbach, M.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Paget, R. T.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Wigg, G. E. C.


Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Smith, T. (Normanton)
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.


Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Snow, Capt. J. W.
Wilkes, Maj. L.


Palmer, A. M. F.
Solley, L. J.
Wilkins, W. A.


Pargiter, G. A.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T.
Sparks, J. A.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)
Stamford, W.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Paton, J. (Norwich)
Steele, T.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Pearson, A.
Stephen, C.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Peart, Capt. T. F.
Stewart, Capt. M. (Fulham)
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Piratin, P.
Strachey, J.
Williamson, T.


Porter, G. (Leeds)
Strauss, G. R.
Willis, E.


Pritt, D. N.
Swingler, Capt. S.
Wise, Maj. F. J.


Proctor, W. T.
Symonds, Maj. A. L.
Woodburn, A.


Pryde, D. J.
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Woods, G. S.


Pursey, Cmdr. H.
Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Wyatt, Maj. W.


Randall, H. E.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)
Yates, V. F.


Ranger, J.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Rees-Williams, Lt.-Col. D. R.
Thomas, John R. (Dover)
Younger, Maj. Hon. K. G.


Reeves, J.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)



Reid, T. (Swindon)
Thurtle, E.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Rhodes, H.
Timmons, J.
Mr. Collindridge and Mr. Simmons.




NOES


Amory, Lt.-Col. D. H.
Hollis, Sqn.-Ldr. M. C.
Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.


Astor, Hon. M.
Holmes, Sir J. Stanley
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D.


Baldwin, A. E.
Hope, Lt.-Col. Lord J.
Prior-Palmer, Brig. O.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Howard, Hon. A.
Raikes, H. V.


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Hutchison, Lt.-Cdr. Clark (Edin'gh, W.)
Ramsay, Maj. S.


Birch, Lt.-Col. Nigel
Hutchison, Lt.-Col. J. R. (G'gow, C.)
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Boothby, R.
Jarvis, Sir J.
Renton, D.


Bower, N.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)


Boyd-Carpenter, Maj. J. A.
Jennings, R.
Robinson, Wing-Comdr Roland


Braithwaite, Ll.-Comdr. J. G.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W.
Ropner, Col. L.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Keeling, E. H.
Ross, Sir R.


Buchan Hepburn, P. G. T.
Lambert, G.
Scott, Lord W.


Carson, E.
Lancaster, Col. C. G.
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Challen, Flt.-Lieut. C.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.


Channon, H.
Lindsay, Lt.-Col. M. (Solihull)
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Lloyd, Brig. J. S. B. (Wirral)
Snadden, W. M.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Low, Brig. A. R. W.
Stanley, Col. Rt. Hon. O.


Cooper-Key, Maj. E. M.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Mackeson, Lt.-Col. H. R.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J.


Cuthbert, W. N.
McKie, J. H (Galloway)
Studholme, H. G.


Davidson, Viscountess
Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Sutcliffe, H.


Digby, Maj. S. Wingfield
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)


Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Teeling, Flt.-Lieut. W.


Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Thomson, Sir D. (Aberdeen, S.)


Drayson, Capt. G. B.
Marples, Capt. A. E.
Thorneycroft, G. E. P.


Drewe, C.
Marshall, Comdr. D. (Bodmin)
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Duthie, W. S.
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Turton, R. H.


Eccles, D. M.
Maude, J. C.
Vane, Lieut.-Col. W. M. T.


Erroll, Col. F. J.
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Walker-Smith, Lt.-Col. D.


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Mellor, Sir J.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)
Morrison, Rt. Hon. W. S. (Cirencester)
Wheatley, Lt.-Col. M. J.


Gage, Lt.-Col. C.
Neven-Spence, Major Sir B.
White, Maj. J. B. (Canterbury)


George, Maj. Rt. Hn. G. Lloyd (P'br'ke)
Nield, B.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Gomme-Duncan, Col. A. G.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Williams, Lt.-Cdr. G. W. (T'nbr'ge)


Gridley, Sir A.
Nutting, Anthony
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Grimston, R. V.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.
York, C.


Hare, Lt.-Col. Hon. J. H. (Woodbridge)
Osborne, C.
Young, Maj. Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Harvey, Air-Cmdre. A. V.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.



Haughton, Maj. S. G.
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Pitman, I. J.
Major Mott-Radclyffe and Commander Agnew.


Hogg, Hon. Q.
Poole, Col. O. B. S. (Oswestry)



Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Whiteley): I beg to move,
That the proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the Provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House).
This is to ensure that we can get through Government business to-day.

Question again proposed,

PROCEDURE (STANDING COMMITTEES)

Question again proposed:
''That—
(1) For the remainder of this Session paragraph 1 of Standing Order No. 47 shall read, 'As many Standing Committees shall be appointed as may be necessary for the consideration of bills or other business committeed to a Standing Committee, and the procedure in those Committees shall be the same as in a Select Committee, unless the House otherwise order. On a division being called in the House, the Chairman of a Standing Committee shall suspend the proceedings in the Committee for such time as will, in his opinion, enable the members to vote in the divison. Any notice of an amendment to a bill which has been committed to a Standing Committee shall stand referred to the Standing Committee. The quorum of a Standing Committee shall be fifteen. Strangers shall be admitted to a Standing Committee except when the Committee shall order them to withdraw.'
(2) For the remainder of this Session Standing Order No. 48 shall read, 'Each of the said Standing Committtees shall consist of twenty members, to be nominated by the committee of selection, who shall have regard to the composition of the House; and shall have power to discharge members from time to time, and to appoint others in substitution for those discharged. Provided that, for the consideration of all public bills relating exclusively to Wales and Monmouthshire, the committee shall be so constituted as to comprise all members sitting for constituencies in Wales and Monmouthshire. The committee of selection shall also have power to add not more than thirty members to a standing committee in respect of any bill referred to it, to serve on the committee during the consideration of such bill, and in adding such members shall have regard to their qualifications. Provided that this order shall not apply to the standing committee on Scottish bills.'
(3) (a) A Standing Committee to whom a Bill das been committed shall meet to consider that Bill on such days of the week (being days on which the House sits) as may be appointed by the Standing Committee at half past ten o'clock and, if not previously adjourned, at one o'clock the Chairman shall adjourn the Committee without Question put:

Provided that the first meeting of a Standing Committee to consider a Bill shall be at half past ten o'clock on a day to be named by the Chairman of the Committee.
(b) Government Bills referred to a Standing Committee shall be considered in whatever order the Government may decide.
(c) Nothing in this Order shall prevent a Standing Committee meeting at hours additional to those set out in sub-paragraph (a) of this Order.

7.47 p.m.

Sir C. MacAndrew: I beg to move, in line 30, at end, insert:
and if an Allocation of Time Order has been made in respect of the Bill the Chairman shall put any questions necessary to conclude the proceedings allocated to the sitting in sufficient time that those questions may be decided before one o'clock.
This Amendment is quite simple. If hon. Members will look at the new Order, they will see that at one o'clock the Chairman is to adjourn the Committee without Question put. If there is a timetable in action, there will be certain questions which will probably have to be put to clear the work of that day's sitting. If the Chairman has to adjourn the Committee without Question put, he must be given reasonable time in advance, so as to get the decks cleared by calling the various divisions which will be needed to bring the business allocated to that day's sitting to a close at that day's sitting. I hope I have made it clear; it is a simple matter of machinery.

7.48 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Morrison: I have great sympathy with the hon. and gallant Member on this point, but there is a practical difficulty, and the problem is to provide for this point without creating some further practical difficulties. As I see it, it is not easy to foresee the course of business with such a degree of precision as will enable the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member to work, and I think it is rather difficult to deal with it as a matter of machinery in a Standing Order. The real problem is to anticipate the conclusion of business at one o'clock without Question put. It might be very nice to take a couple of minutes, but it might be 10 minutes or a quarter of an hour, if Questions have to be put with divisions. The House resumes at 2.15, and the reporters have things to clear up and food to eat, consequently if they are kept even for a quarter of an hour, difficulties are created in relation to the reporting of the House as from


2.15. So long as the House meets at 2.15, this bridging of the gap between the one o'clock ending of the Committee and the 2.15 sitting of the House will be the real difficulty. While the hon. and gallant Gentleman's point is quite a good one, I do not see the way to meet it by Standing Order, and I do not think this Amendment meets it.
I think that the wisest thing would be for the Standing Committees and their chairmen to be conscious of the difficulties, and try to think ahead in the last three quarters of an hour or half-hour of the Committee's proceedings, and shape their discussion so that they can tidy up outstanding questions by one o'clock. By the application of good sense and co-operation, I think it will be possible to meet the difficulty better than by amending the Standing Order. We shall gather experience, and if later on it becomes necessary to make some specific Amendment to the Standing Order, the Government will be willing to consider it at a later stage. Therefore, I put it to the hon. and gallant Gentleman that I am not unfriendly on the matter to which he has called attention, and I know the helpful spirit in which he has raised it. I suggest, however, that he should not press the Amendment now, but that we should see how we get on, and then consider the matter again at a later stage if necessary.

7.51 p.m.

Mr. W. S. Morrison: I think it would be convenient if we considered, together with this Amendment, the next Amendment on the Order Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden), which reads:
In line 30, at end, insert, "but if an Allocation of Time Order has been made in respect of a Bill, the Chairman shall, at one o'clock, put any questions necessary to conclude the proceedings allocated to that day.
This Amendment deals with the same problem, and in my opinion deals with it in a better way. I can quite understand the objection which the Lord President of the Council has advanced against the Amendment of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ayr and Bute, Northern (Sir C. MacAndrew), but at the same time it is very difficult for the Chairman of a Standing Committee to anticipate when he should break off the discussion in order to leave enough time, and no

more, to put the necessary questions. On the other hand, it would be very desirable that the work that had been done so far should have the seal put upon it so that it would stand on the records as completed business. What is proposed in the Amendment on the Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington is that at one o'clock, notwithstanding the operation of the timetable, the Chairman should be at liberty to put any necessary questions to the vote. I do not think this would hold up proceedings. What we want to avoid is the mere effluxion of time preventing the business that had already been accomplished from being recorded and settled. If it were considered that, notwithstanding the approach of one o'clock, the Chairman should put the necessary questions, that would fix the work that had already been done. I think it would be convenient if these two Amendments were discussed together.

7.53 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I can speak again only by leave of the House. I did not know that the next Amendment on the Order Paper might be merged into this Debate. I do not want to be obstinate, and I am willing to listen to arguments. I agree with the right hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. W. S. Morrison) in thinking that the second Amendment, to which he referred, is more practicable than that of the hon. and gallant Member for Ayr and Bute, Northern (Sir C. MacAndrew), but I am still in the difficulty that at one o'clock there might be two or even three questions outstanding—

Sir C. MacAndrew: There might be four questions outstanding.

Mr. H. Morrison: There might be the Closure and three other questions. I do not know how long, on the average, divisions take in Standing Committee, but certainly they would take something like eight or 10 minutes. Even if a division took eight minutes and there were three of them, that would keep the Standing Committee in session until about 25 minutes past one. The question is whether Members with luncheon appointments would wait until 25 minutes past one. There is also the point that the reporters have to get ready to report the proceedings of the House at 2.15 p.m.


and they have to clear up any matter on their notebooks by that time. That is the practical difficulty. If I were sure that the Amendment would be worked with good sense, I would accept it, but one can never be sure whether, when things got a bit excited, it would be worked with good sense. I wonder whether we had not better try to deal with the matter by good sense, and then consider later on whether an Amendment of the Standing Order is necessary to cover the point.

Sir C. MacAndrew: Having had an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that the Chairmen of Standing Committees will be expected to try to get the decks cleared by one o'clock, which I gather is what the right hon. Gentleman wishes, I should be prepared to withdraw the Amendment.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I think it is in everybody's interest that this matter should be clarified. I wish to put the position as it seems to me it will almost certainly arise. There will be a bunch of, say, six Clauses which have to be terminated at one o'clock. It will be found that perhaps only three of those Clauses have been passed and that the fourth Clause is under discussion at ten minutes to one; there will be something interesting going on, and every hon. Member will want to get the maximum amount of discussion before the guillotine falls; nobody will be willing to give way, and the Chairman will not be able to do anything until one o'clock strikes. There will then be left an outstanding controversy on the fourth Clause, and there will be the fifth and sixth Clauses which will have to be passed under the guillotine in order to start the next meeting of the Committee, with the decks cleared on the next lot of Clauses. I do not know what will happen in those circumstances as the Standing Order is now drafted. There seems to be no provision in the present draft for clearing up that situation, which it seems to me will very likely occur in many cases. I think it very likely that it will be necessary to come back to the House for further directions if this matter is not cleared up now. A division in a Standing Committee does not take many minutes. If this situation occurs, all that it means is that it may take the Standing

Committee up to a quarter of an hour to clear the decks. It will only be a matter of the formal procedure of putting questions to the vote. There is no reason why the reporters should report that. There will be the clerks taking the names in the division, and there will be nothing for the reporters to do, as there will be no more discussion after one o'clock. If things are done in that way, the decks will then be properly cleared. It would not embarrass the proceedings if this Amendment were accepted, and it might avoid a very difficult situation which could not be cleared up without an appeal to the House.

7.58 p.m.

Col. Ropner: I hope the Government will accept the Amendment. As I understand the argument of the Lord President of the Council, he suggests we should rely on the good sense of the Standing Committee and the Chairman of the Standing Committee to see that it is concluded by one o'clock. I suggest that we cannot always rely on the good sense of the Chairman or the good sense of the Committee, and in those circumstances it is advisable that we should have some words such as are suggested in either of the two Amendments. I ask the right hon Gentleman to consider the matter again.

7.59 p.m.

Mr. Viant: I do not know which Amendment hon. Members opposite want to have accepted, but it seems to me that the Amendment in the name of the right hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) is preferable. When the Select Committee were considering this matter, they were not considering Members who might be in a hurry to get their lunch. They were confronted with a more difficult and practical problem. The reporters who attend the Standing Committees have to dictate their report and have it finished in time to enable them to start reporting the proceeding of the House at a quarter past two. I think the second Amendment may be some help, but all the same, the Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee which is responsible for the guillotine will have to see that the Chairman does not overlook the need for getting the Business cleared up before one o'clock. That is the important point.

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Charles Williams: May I point out one further consideration? There may be one or two Clauses to get through by one o'clock, and some Government Amendments to be considered. What is the position if, at one o'clock, there is this gap with two or three Clauses left, on which there are a number of Government Amendments not disposed of? They would have to come back and be dealt with on Report stage in the House, and a lot of time might be wasted. I am presuming that these things have been thought out in consultation with the powers that be, and if that is the position, and I can see no argument against it, it would seem wise to have some provision so that, at the end of the day, the Committee would have cleared up the things that were due to be dealt with on that day. I thought it right to point that out to the Government, because, apparently, this position has not been very much thought about.

Amendment negatived.

8.1 p.m.

Sir C. MacAndrew: I beg to move, in line 32, to leave out, "half-past ten o'clock," and insert "a time and."
This rectifies what seems to be a slip in drafting. It has been the undoubted right of the Chairmen to name the hour and date of the first meeting. We still leave them the right of naming the day, but we are taking away the right of naming the hour. I hope that we shall still give the Chairman that right. May I say that, in the Spring of this year, when there was a desire to change the normal hour of sitting from 11 a.m. to 10.30, it was through the Chairmen's Panel that we had it altered. I think that, as we do our work efficiently, we should be left with that right.

Colonel Ropner: I beg to second the Amendment.
The Chairmen's Panel settles those points not governed by Standing Orders, and they report by Resolution to this House; I quote a Resolution:
Over a large number of years, it has been the established right that the Chairmen appointed to Standing Committees for the consideration of particular Bills should name the day and hour on which consideration of the Bill should begin.
That Resolution was passed on a Ruling given by Mr. Speaker Peel in the last century, and I hope that the Government

do not intend to alter a custom which has proved satisfactory to both the Chairmen and Members of the Committees up to the present.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I can assure the House that there was no wish on the part of the Government to be discourteous to the Chairmen of Committees. They are a very honourable and fair-minded body of hon. Members, who have rendered great public service without any great public show for it. They deserve well from the House for their services, and they are always fair in these matters, but it does seem to us to be logical and sensible, it being understood there is to be a change, that 10.30 should be the time and that is applied only to the first meeting. Subsequently, I believe, the arrangement is taken care of in the new Standing Orders. I am sure the Chairmen will realise that it is the understanding of the House that the hour would be 10.30 a.m., and, in order to try to avoid any feeling that we are trying to fetter the discretion of the Chairmen in this matter, I shall accept the Amendment.

Amendment agreed to.

BUSINESS SUB-COMMITTEE

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That—
(1) An Allocation of Time Order relating, or so much thereof as relates, to the Committee stage, made in respect of a Bill committed or to be committed to a Standing Committee shall, as soon as the Bill has been allocated to a Standing Committee, stand referred without any Question being put to a Sub-Committee of that Standing Committee appointed under paragraph 2 of this Order.
(2) (a) There shall be a Sub-Committee of every Standing Committee, to be designated the Business Sub-Committee, for the consideration of any Allocation of Time Order or part thereof made in respect of any Bill allocated to that Standing Committee, and to report to that Committee upon—
(i) the number of sittings to be allotted to the consideration of the Bill;
(ii) the hours of sittings, if any, additional to those set out in paragraph (3) of the Order of the House of relating to Standing Committees;
(iii) the allocation of the proceedings to be taken at each sitting; and
(iv) the time at which proceedings, if not previously brought to a conclusion, shall be concluded.


(b) As soon as maybe after an Allocation of Time Order relating to a Bill committed to a Standing Committee has been made, Mr. Speaker shall nominate the Chairman of the Standing Committee in respect of that Bill and seven members of the Standing Committee as constituted in respect of that Bill to be members of the Business Sub-Committee to consider that order, and those members shall be discharged from the sub-committee when that Bill has been reported to the House by the Standing Committee. The Chairman of the Committee shall be the Chairman of the Sub-Committee; the Quorum of the Sub-Committee shall be Four; and the Sub-Committee shall have power to report from time to time.
(c) All Resolutions of a Business Sub-Committee shall be printed and circulated with the Votes. If, when any such Resolutions have been reported to the Standing Committee, a Motion "That this Committee doth agree with the Resolution (or Resolutions) of the Business Sub-Committee," is moved by the Member in charge of the Bill, such a Motion shall not require notice, and shall be moved at the commencement of proceedings at any sitting of a Standing Committee; and the Question thereon shall be decided without amendment or debate, and, if resolved in the Affirmative, the said Resolution (or Resolutions) shall operate as though included in the Allocation of Time Order made by the House.—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

8.7 p.m.

Sir C. MacAndrew: I beg to move, in line 6, at end, insert:
Provided no Allocation of Time Order shall apply to the Committee stage of any Bill now under consideration in a Standing Committee.
This Amendment, again, is a machinery one. It deals with the question of an Allocation of Time Order, affecting any Bill at present under consideration in Standing Committee. There would be many serious difficulties and part of the nucleus of the Committee would require to be discharged, and it would be impossible to carry it out.

Mr. H. Morrison: This is, as the hon. Gentleman says, a machinery matter. There is no intention on the part of the Government to apply it in relation to a Bill now under consideration. I am not sure that we could have done so without coming to the House to reconstitute the Committee. In any case, if I give my assurance that the Government have no intention of doing this, perhaps the hon. Gentleman will not press his Amendment, because, hereafter, the words would have no meaning.

Sir C. MacAndrew: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.8 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in line 11, to leave out, "sittings," and insert "hours."
We regard this as an important matter and one on which we hope the Lord President will be able to meet us. It is one which is really designed to facilitate the proceedings of a Standing Committee. As I read the Order now, the number of Sittings will be decided by the Sub-Committee, which may be only four people. If you had the number of hours fixed, instead of Sittings, then the difficulty with regard to the lack of a quorum would, it seems to me, be overcome. The right hon. Gentleman, in his remarks earlier this afternoon, indicated that he was not prepared to agree to make some alteration so that the number of Sittings could be extended by one in the event of there not being a quorum at a particular sitting, for the reason, as he indicated, that there had been, in the past, on certain occasions, people in the corridor outside the Committee room with a view to there not being a quorum on that occasion. That may have happened in the past but I submit that if no provision is made for dealing with cases when, non-intentionally, but because of a wave of influenza or for some other reason, there is not a quorum, then, if the number of sittings are limited, it seems to me that the Standing Committee will be deprived of having a proper opportunity for considering that part of the Bill which is allotted to it.
If you have, instead of sittings, a number of hours allotted then, if you have no quorum at one particular sitting, the hours will go on to another occasion. I suggest there should be some provision in this Order for dealing with the case where there is no quorum, not because of deliberate abstension, but for some other cause entirely. Indeed, with the Government's vast majority, I should have thought that the steps suggested by the Lord President of deliberate abstension to prevent there being a quorum would have been avoided if the hon. Members who support the Government attended the meetings of the Standing Committee. Seriously, I suggest we should not be leaving this Order in as good a form as it could be, if we did not make some provision for extending the number of hours during which a Bill could be considered in Committee in the event


of one Sitting, or a certain number of hours, being unavoidably wasted through one cause or another.

Mr. Quintin Hogg: I beg to second the Amendment.

8.12 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: This is an arguable matter, but the Government gave very careful consideration to it and, on the whole, we thought that the proposal before: the House was the right one. There is involved in this, as the hon. Gentleman indicated, the question of a quorum and I think on that matter and on the point of getting a time by which the Committee should conclude the Committee stage, the more we go upon the basis that it is the duty of the Committee to do its work and the duty of hon. Members to see that there is a a quorum, the better and the safer it is. In any case I would prefer it as we have it on the Paper for the time being but, of course, we can see how this works in the light of experience. It is a new and a fairly novel matter, this business committee proposal within the allocated time of Standing Committees, and we shall have a lot to learn as we go along. Therefore I hope the Amendment will not be pressed and, in any case, I would prefer that the House should adopt the proposal that the Government have made on the understanding that we can watch and learn as we go, and if other and better proposals would be wise later on, we shall certainly be willing to examine them.

8.14 p.m.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I wonder whether the Lord President will agree to the following suggestion. I see the difficulty of making these codes too complex to begin with, but a very difficult situation might quite easily arise under which all quarters of the Committee agreed that some mishap had really deprived the Committee of an opportunity of quite legitimate and necessary discussion if they were to do their work properly. If something of that kind arose, it is not within the competency of the Committee, or of the business sub-committee of the Committee, to put it right. If the Lord President will say that, in the event of something like that arising, he will come back to this House for the necessary Order to give extra time to the Committee to make up for lost time, then I think that

might enable us to get over the difficulty, but we have great diffidence in leaving it where it stands.

8.15 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I will say this, that I do not anticipate that such a real and substantial difficulty will arise, but certainly, if something that cannot be foreseen arises, whereby the Committee have really unavoidably lost time that could not have been foreseen and it is as obvious and patent as all that, I would be willing to consider on the merits ad hoc and specific action at that time. I hope that will meet the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

8.16 p.m.

Mr. Charles Williams: I think there is a great deal in what the Lord President said, that we cannot possibly tell exactly where we are going. He also said that we must watch and learn as we go on. I have done a certain amount of watching and learning about Standing Committees upstairs—not very much possibly, but something—and, quite frankly, I want to see this procedure made good and I say, with equal frankness, if you are going to lay down blocks of days as sittings, you are always liableto have something happen that upsets a sitting. If you give three or four sittings to a Bill, there is that liability, and it is a thing which those of us who have experience of this work know can happen. If on the other hand you say, "This Bill has to be through by a certain date, and a certain number of hours have to be given to it," then I believe you have secured a watertight method. Of course, we know that the Lord President is an astute political man, but I warn him that the way offered by this Amendment would be really more in the interests of the House. I do not want to see the Lord President having to come down here to change this and that thing and the sittings of the House in the next year or two; I want to see it done now, because I believe it is the only really satisfactory way. As far as I am concerned I should really hate it if I had to tell the Lord President in a year or two that I warned him about this, that and the other thing and that he was wrong all the time. I suggest this is one of the cases in which if he took the reasonable line and went a little further it would pay him in the end and it would be in the best interests of the House as well.

8.18 p.m.

Sir R. Young: The only objection I can see to this is that when we were considering the matter in Committee we did not encourage the Committee to partition a Bill. What we thought was that, if a date was put for the termination of the discussion of the Bill upstairs, the Standing Committee would accommodate themselves to the time placed at their disposal. If you scrap the suggestion of sittings for that of hours, you may only increase the sittings from two-day to three-day sittings a week. I do not think that is to be encouraged. However, the real point was that there would be a Motion in the House saying that the Bill should be reported on a certain day, and we were not encouraging the Committee to divide the Bill up into parts. If the Committee took that method then, of course, they could very easily determine the number of sittings to each portion of the Bill.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I propose to take the next two Amendments together.

8.20 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in line 12, leave out from "sittings," to end of line 13.
This Amendment has been put down with a view to getting an explanation from the Lord President of the Council as to the precise purpose of the words which it is proposed to omit. In the preceding Order there is a proviso that:
Nothing in this Order shall prevent a Standing Committee meeting at hours additional to those set out in sub-paragraph (a) of this Order.
As I read it, this part of the Order under consideration, would provide that the Sub-Committee, it may be only four Members of the Sub-Committee, could prescribe the hours of sitting additional to the normal hours, and then, when the matter comes back to the Committee, that question must be put without Amendment or debate. It seems to me, that these four Members of the Sub-Committee should not be able to settle what the hours should be, without the other Members of the Committee being able to express some view upon it. Therefore, I suggest that the Sub-Committee should merely report on the hours of sitting, which would be required to get through the business by the fixed date, and it

should then be left to the Committee it self, to decide how best to fit in these particular hours, and on what date.

8.21 p.m.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I beg to second the Amendment.
I would put one additional point, and perhaps the Lord President would explain what the intention is. I assume it is intended that the Business Sub-Committee may have two reports, an initial report, with the allocation which is intended at the beginning, and, if that does not work well, I presume the Business Sub-Committee would be entitled to make a second report, advising modification or extension of the first report. I would like to get from the Lord President, whether that is his understanding of this provision. If that is so, do the words which we are proposing to leave out really apply more to the second amending report, than to the first report? I see great difficulty about the first report bringing anything under this sub-heading at all. The first report would bring in the ordinary Tuesday and Thursday sitting, because we are told that the Wednesday sitting is only to be an expedient if you are in difficulties. I wonder whether this is the picture: That the first report of the Business Sub-Committee recommends so many sittings on Tuesday and Thursday, but if these should be subsequently continued, the Business Sub-Committee would come along with another report and say, "We think there ought to be an additional sitting," and that may be a sitting Wednesday morning, or some other time, and then it would be necessary to provide additional bours. If that is the intention, I can see the good sense of the Order. Perhaps the Lord President can tell us, first, whether it is possible for the Business Sub-Committee to come along with a second report modifying their first report, and, if that is possible, do the words which we move to leave out, fit that case of an extension on a subsequent occasion?

8.23 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I do not complain about hon. Members not being sure about this, because I admit that I had to make some inquiries myself. I understand that the intention is that the Business Committee, before the examination of the Bill is commenced, will produce suggestions as to how the Committee should handle it in relation to the Guillotine time


limit. It may wish, in relation to these two lines which it is proposed to omit, to propose that the Committee shall sit upon additional occasions. Subsequently, as the Bill goes along the Committee, while intending to adhere to the over-all time by which it will report the Bill to the House, may find it would like a little more time, or it may wish even to adjust the sittings of the Committee and modify them to meet the general convenience. It is for that reason that these various alternative powers of the Business Committee are inserted in this proposed Standing Order, so as to give the necessary elasticity on the first occasion that they report, and, if convenient, on the second or other occasions, during which they may report revision of the proposals.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: In view of the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: I beg to move, in line 15, after "which," insert:
provided that the Committee shall have sat not less than the specified number of sittings of two and a half hours.
Subsection 4 (2) says that the Sub-Committee may report to the Committee the time at which proceedings, if not previously brought to a conclusion, shall be concluded. The first question which I want to put to the Lord President of the Council is this: Does that mean that the entire proceedings, or the proceedings on any particular part, if the programme is a little bit behind, that they can report to the Committee that the proceedings shall be brought, at that moment, to a conclusion on that part? If it is a proposal that the Sub-Committee report the time at which the total proceedings of the Committee shall be concluded, then I hope that the Lord President will accept this Amendment, which merely provides a safeguard to ensure that the number of sittings of two and a half hours, originally contemplated for consideration of a Bill in Committee, have in fact been available, and used for consideration of the Bill. I am sure that the Lord President does not want the Committee stage of a Bill to be cut short by some fortuitous or accidental circumstance, and that he does desire that a Bill shall have proper

consideration by the Standing Committee in the time allotted. That is why this proviso is put down to ensure there shall be the allotted number of two and a half hours before the Sub-Committee can exercise their power of reporting that this matter shall be brought to a conclusion.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I beg to second the Amendment.

8.29 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: The right hon. and learned Gentleman asked me whether this was in relation to the total finish of the Committee stage of the Bill, or whether it could be applied on particular days. The answer is that it can be applied on particular days, and need not necessarily relate to the final date. With regard to the Amendment, we have taken the line all along, and I understand the Select Committee accepted that, that what the House would do, would be to give the Committee directions that it must complete a Committee stage by a certain date. If so, it is for the Business Sub-Committee of the Committee to decide, and to report to the Committee, the time that should be allotted. If we once start making allowances, subject to something utterly unforseeable and really serious, the Committee might have bad luck one day, there would be no quorum, and therefore you must extend. I would sooner that in those circumstances the Business Sub-Committee should meet again, and say, "We have lost a certain amount of time, or we have not made such progress as we would have liked, and we would like the rest of the Bill to be properly examined; we there fore propose that the Committee should sit for additional days or hours," as the case may be. I think we must place the responsibility on this Business Sub-Committee to comply in the most convenient way with the directions of the House, and I would advise the House that the proposals of the Government in this respect should be adhered to.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I think that the next three Amendments can be taken together.

8.31 p.m.

Sir C. MacAndrew: I beg to move, in line 18, leave out from "nominate," to "members," in line 19, and insert "eight."
I am much obliged for your suggestion, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. I feel most strongly about this matter, and I will explain why. Under the present proposals the arrangement is that the Chairman of a Standing Committee, in a case where a Time Order has been set up, will be the Chairman of a Business Sub-committee, and that the other Members of that Sub-Committee will consist of seven Members of the Standing Committee nominated by Mr. Speaker. That will have the result that the Chairman and those seven Members will have to draw up the time-table and arrange the guillotine, and however well they do it there will be a section in the Committee who are dissatisfied. That will reflect on the Chairman, and anyone with experience of the chairmanship of Standing Committees in this House knows that the secret of getting a Committee to run smoothly is that everyone is without a grudge against the Chair. That is absolutely necessary. If the Chairman is trusted by the Members, the Committee can get along very well. In pitchforking the Chairman into this position of having to be responsible, I do not think it is a fair argument to say that he is there to hold the ring. We are working on party lines in this House and party lines remain, and though the Chairman, for two hours on two days a week, is put in a rather higher position, he very soon comes back to his normal position of being Lobby fodder.
My Amendments seek to achieve that, instead of nominating seven Members from the Standing Committee, Mr. Speaker will nominate eight, and he will nominate one of them to be Chairman of the Business Sub-Committee. When they come to their conclusions, and are agreed, the Chairman of the Standing Committee will be handed a fait accompli which he will carry out. He will not have been in any way responsible for drawing it up. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will help Chairmen of Standing Committees by keeping them clear of controversy. The amount of trouble one has to take already in explaining why a particular Amendment has not been called and trying to keep the peace is already great, and it would not be fair to make our job any more difficult. It is not in the least a spectacular job, but a lot of tact is required, and I do not think it is fair to do anything that will cause the Chairman more difficulty. The third

Amendment proposes that the Chairman of the Sub-Committee, whom I wish to see appointed from the eight Members of the Standing Committee, should also be Deputy Chairman of the Standing Committee.
I do not think the duties of the Chairman will be more difficult, but hon. Members should realise that we are increasing the length of the Sittings of Standing Committees by 25 per cent., and the Standing Committee Chairman is the only man in this House who has not a deputy. The Speaker has a deputy, the Serjeant-at-Arms has a deputy. They can go out for a minute or two if they wish. The Chairman of a Standing Committee cannot, and I do not think that is right. It should be altered, and this is the easiest way to do it. I have no wish, by having a Deputy Chairman, to try to put the work on his back, but I would like to have someone to whom I can say, "I am going out for a minute or two. Call such and such an Amendment next." I hope that these three Amendments will be accepted in the form they are in. I feel very strongly about the matter, and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will try my scheme and, if it does not work, go back to the other one. Being the Chairman of a Standing Committee is a difficult job; one has to be everyone's friend. Do not let us start this scheme by making the work more difficult.

8.36 p.m.

Mr. Charles Williams: As one who has never taken the Chair in a Standing Committee, but only here in the House, I think it is impossible to contradict the claim that there should be some means of providing a deputy for the Chair on the occasion of long sittings, and also for any other emergency. That is so because we are trying to make the work of these Standing Committees more satisfactory all round. We desire to see that they do not break down, and it is essential that there should be some machinery in a Standing Committee of that size, dealing with matters of first-class importance, to have a Deputy Chairman available in some way or other. That is a point which should be dealt with, even if the other Amendments cannot be met. It has always seemed to me, in watching Committee work upstairs, that the Chairmen of these Standing Committees had a


task of great difficulty. I have seen them sitting for very long periods and it was obvious that the whole thing would have been better conducted if there had been a Deputy-Chairman to take over for half an hour or even an hour.
In regard to the first Amendment, there is a good deal in what my hon. and gallant Friend has said. The Chairman comes off the panel, he may be of this or the other party, and he has to conduct the affairs of the Committee. Under this scheme, before the Committee works there is this new organisation, this new Sub-Committee of the Committee which is to lay down a time-table procedure and how it will work we do not quite know. It is a new feature, and we do not know how it will work. Would it not be better to allow the Speaker to choose someone for that particular purpose? As far as these Chairmen are concerned, some are first-class, but they may not have had any connection with anything on the lines of time-tables previously. Mr. Speaker will know of Members who are capable of doing that work and will also be able to choose an hon. Member quite outside the ordinary run of a Committee who might be a specialist, and might have the gift of getting seven or eight Members together and coming to an arrangement. It would work quite well, and it is a strong argument for not allowing the Chairmanship of the Sub-Committee to fall to the same person as the Chairman of the Committee but to someone nominated from outside. I feel sure that the Leader of the House, in his wisdom—and he has great skill—would be meeting this Amendment by saying: "Oh, well, I am going right outside; I am going to make myself absolutely safe." He is a great believer in safety first. I would venture to suggest to him that he should accept these two of the three Amendments.

8.41 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I much appreciate the kindly, and almost fatherly, manner in which the hon. Member for Torquay (Mr. C. Williams) advised me in the course of his observation, which, I know, he meant in the most friendly way. On this series of Amendments, I am able to reciprocate with a good deal of sympathy what has been said, particularly on the second point. I am not quite so

sure of the point about the danger of running the Chairman into a controversial atmosphere, because I am anxious that this Business Committee shall not be a controversial business at all. I am anxious that its members should sit in a friendly way round the table, and do the best for everybody in the time available. It may well be that the Chairman will not take the responsibility, presumably, for initiating the Allocation of Time Order. That, presumably, would be the responsibility of the Government—or the Government, after consultation with the Opposition, may bring in an agreed thing—but it may well be that the Committee, in the course of the discussion, may get into a tangle, and that the Chairman may intervene and say: "Probably, if this were agreed to, it might meet all points of view of the Committee," and the Committee may say "Yes." If it said "No," it would not matter. I believe there was a conference when a voluntary guillotine was made on the India Bill, and the Chair was taken by the Chairman of Ways and Means. If that is so, it shows it can be done. I am not sure that the Chairman, who would, presumably, have studied the Bill, would not be the best person for that job, and I am not convinced that it would land him into a controversy, although it is a fair point to raise.
On the second point I have great sympathy, especially as the Committees are to sit for a full half hour longer at a stretch, and I have great sympathy with the Chairmen of the Committees in this matter. They can, of course, adjourn the Committees for a few minutes if they wish, but it is an unpleasant thing to have to do, and I am very sympathetic about it on those grounds. I admit, if I were to give way on the second ground—it might be a matter of convenience—that thereby I should be more sympathetic about the first ground, about the merits of which I am not so sympathetic. Therefore, I approach the matter not in an unfriendly way. This is my difficulty. As the House knows, Mr. Speaker is unfortunately at present indisposed, and I have not been able to consult him about this. The responsibility and burden of selecting the Deputy-Chairmen as well as the Chairmen would, under the proposal, fall upon Mr. Speaker. I do not like agreeing to this without consulting him


about it, because he is experienced in these selections and would have to carry the added burden. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman would be so good as not to press his Amendment, and would withdraw it, I will undertake to go into the matter with Mr. Speaker when he is better if it then see no great difficulties and, if it is the will of the House to be sympathetic, I will bring up the additional Motion, which I hope we can carry through.

Sir C. MacAndrew: Thanks to the very generous attitude adopted by the right hon. Gentleman, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Mainningham-Buller: I beg to move, in line 31, after "and," insert "if."
I desire, if I may, to discuss, together with this Amendment, the next Amendment on the Order Paper standing in my name.
If these Amendments were carried, it would mean that in line 31 the sentence beginning "And" would read as follows:
And if the question thereon be resolved in the affirmative the said Resolution or Resolutions shall operate as though included in the Allocation of Time Order made by the House.
As the Order stands at present, as I read it, any Resolution of a Business Sub-Committee must, when it is reported to the Standing Committee and the Motion is moved by the Minister in charge of the Bill, be put and decided without Amendment or Debate. I think that is wrong for the reasons I will state. I think it is right that this Business Sub-Committee, when it makes its Report, should not have that Report challengeable, but should make it in the nature of suggestions to the Committee. That was the term the Lord President himself used just now in answer to my right hon. Friend when he was talking about the hours of sitting. If they are suggestions to the Committee, the Committee should have an opportunity of considering them, and it is no use, in this connection, using the argument that, if this question is allowed to be debated or amended, it will merely be used for purposes of obstruction, because the time taken in discussing any Report of the Business Sub-Commit-

tee will not extend the period within which the Bill has to be reported back to the House as a whole.
It is really leaving too much power in the hands of the Business Sub-Committee to say that no Report of theirs, if accepted by the Government, must be moved without anyone being able to debate or amend it. May I put the following suggestion to the Lord President? Suppose, for instance, there were, on the Business Sub-Committee, a number of Members who were singularly ignorant of trade union organisation and plans, and unaware of the fact that a conference was going to be held on a Wednesday of a particular week when Parliament was sitting, and they reported that this particular Standing Committee, on, which were a number of trade unionists, should sit on that particular Wednesday. It may be that the influence of the trade unionists upon the Minister in charge of the Bill would suffice for the Question not to be put. One must, as the Lord President said, have regard to the Opposition as well, and is it not right, when a Report comes back containing suggestions, that the Members of the Standing Committee should be entitled to make some representations with regard thereto? Is it not right that there should be some power of Amendment by the Members of the Standing Committee, or are they going to be subject to the complete control of a Business Sub-Committee, consisting of not more than seven, and, it may be, only four, telling them precisely what they have to do if it be the case, that the Minister in charge of the Bill, puts the Motion?

8.49 p.m.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: I would like to put the case from a slightly different angle. At one time in this House there was no provision for any Motion being put without Amendment or Debate, but there is one Motion, and only one, I think, of this type which can be put at present, either in the House or in Committee, without Amendment or Debate, arid that is the Closure. There is an essential difference between the Closure and a timetable settled in advance. The Closure is only granted by the Speaker, or the Chairman, and he has the whole situation laid out in front of him. He can see almost at a glance whether or not it will be an appropriate occasion to allow a Closure.
But here we are dealing with something wholly hypothetical. We are dealing with the future conduct of Debate, and nobody can be such an omniscient prophet as to be able to foresee everything that may happen. Two heads are always better than one, and I suggest it will simplify things very much, if anybody on the Committee who happens to have a point of his own is allowed to put it. The Committee may sympathise with him against the Business Sub-Committee. It will not take more than five or ten minutes at the outside, because everybody knows he cannot talk at large without diminishing the time available for discussion. It is in nobody's interest to obstruct or to be long-winded. I think if we start off with the consideration of a Bill in circumstances in which somebody has some bottled up objection that he is not entitled to state, we start off in an atmosphere, if not of friction, at least of dissatisfaction, which could be avoided if we would only allow five or ten minutes in order to have the whole thing tidied up in a friendly way. Therefore, I think it would be very much in the interest of the success of this scheme that we should allow some short Debate before the matter is put to the Vote.
As the Lord President has said, this is experimental. If we find that people do make improper use of this liberty, and that the right of other Members to occupy the time on the Bill is being displaced by somebody or another occupying too much time on Procedure, this has to come up again next year; it is a Sessional Order and it can be altered. I suggest we should start this year by giving the extra liberty. If that does not work it can be taken away, but do not let us start the other way round with a Rule which may produce a considerable amount of dissatisfaction and which, so far as I can see, will not be of use to anyone.

8.53 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I make no complaint about the two speeches which have been made and which have been most reasonable, as has the whole of the discussion. A model of Parliamentary decorum has descended upon us today, and we have all been very good. I gathered from the right hon. and learned Gentleman who seconded the Amendment that he had the impression that there was only one Motion

on the Floor which, could be put without Amendment or Debate, and that was the Closure, but, with very great respect, I think there are a number of others that can be put on the Floor without Amendment or Debate, such as the Suspension, of the Standing Orders, numbers of Supply Days, one way or the other, I believe, and there are some others.

Mr. Reid: Surely none of these stops the ordinary Member's right of free speech? When I said "one Motion" I meant a Motion which would stop people from talking, whereas otherwise they would be entitled to talk.

Mr. Morrison: I did not know the right hon. and learned Gentleman was selecting Motions that he does not like, as distinct from the Motions that I like. From that point of view, he may well be right, because I am not quite sure how many kinds of Motions he does not like. I only say that it is not unprecedented, and, from such study of Parliamentary history as I have been able to make, I should say that the tendency for a certain number of issues to be settled under Standing Orders without Amendment or Debate has inclined somewhat to increase.
On the merits of this matter, let us consider what they are. First of all, there is a Motion on the Floor which fixes the overall time in Committee upstairs, and, if the Government so wish, the overall time on Report and possibly the readings of the Bill. Therefore, the real grievance, if any, on the part of the Opposition has been examined and has been capable of the fullest ventilation and argument on the Floor of the House, namely, the overall amount of time which the Government propose to give under the guillotine of the full House. Therefore, it is not the case that the Members are swamped with a Motion, without the right of Amendment or Debate, because the main Motion—the one where the real grievance, if any, arises—is the Motion on the Floor fixing the overall time; that is debatable and, I presume—I am not sure—amendable. I am not sure about that, but I think it is. That stage is reached after Debate and consideration. It then goes upstairs to the Committee for the Committee to make arrangements whereby it can derive the most convenient use of the overall time. That is not really a controversial matter. That is a matter of sense, of judgment and of getting the best common-


sense use of the time available. I do not want that to be regarded as controversial if we can help it. I hope it will not start in that spirit.
I think, therefore, that being the only thing to be done, the question is: What is the best way for democracy to go about its work? If I may say so, I thought that the observations upon democratic procedure by the Mover of the Amendment might have incurred the sincere displeasure of Mr. Lenin who might have described this rather crude and elementary conception of democracy as he described other things at some time—an infantile sickness of the Left. Democracy is not only a matter of the right of every man on a body to have a row and to lift his voice and vote. Democracy is also a matter of the best machinery for the implementation of the democratic will. I suggest in this case that, rather than 50 people having a hefty argument as to how they are going to use this time, it is far better from the democratic point of view for those 50 people to let eight of their wisest people, chosen by Mr. Speaker himself, get round the table and see what is the best way to do it. When they have done that they can then come back to the Committee and report. The question is whether the report should be put without Amendment or Debate, or whether the 50 people should start examining the report and see if they can make improvements within the limits of the time allocated. I know what would happen if 50 people discussed this report which the Committee had settled carefully and quietly in a little room; I know what would happen with 50 people tearing it to pieces. They would get into a real tangle.
I know that the House sitting as a whole—I have seen it—has thoroughly enjoyed itself getting into a tangle. The more it got into a tangle the more it enjoyed itself, and I shared the enjoyment, except when I was the Minister trying to get a Bill through. I really have seen the House getting thoroughly happy; the more it got itself entangled the happier it became. That is all right for a night-out in the full House of Commons, and I would not deny the House these little pleasures, but it is a bad business in a Standing Committee, which ought to be a businesslike affair. On the point that someone may forget a Trades Union Congress—Heaven forbid that anybody should

forget a Trades Union Congress—or other organisations like the Bar Council and so forth—and even the Derby has been taken notice of in the course of Parliamentary history—I only suggest to hon. Members who have these things on their minds and want them to be taken care of that they should take one of the eight Members of the Committee aside and say, "My dear friend, don't forget this, that, or the other, and please remember my own convenience in this little difficulty. "This is the way business is done; this is the way the wheels of Parliamentary democracy run round with great smoothness. In view of the fact that, on the whole, I have demolished the Amendment, with politeness, with good humour, with completeness and with absolute philosophic conviction, I suggest that the Amendment should not be pressed.

9.0 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: I am sorry to disappoint the right hon. Gentleman, but it is so self-evidently desirable to put in the Amendment that I do not think we can accept his view. He said, first, that when there was a Time-Table Motion the real grievance of the Opposition is that there should be an overall allocation of time at all, and that is where the argument and such bad feeling as is engendered occur. That may or may not be so, but here we are trying to avoid mistakes by the Business Sub-Committee. It is human to err about time-tables as about other things. The right hon. Gentleman said, "Well, this is the democratic thing to do; eight Members of the sub-committee to discuss it and 50 to accept the decision." But the eight Members are not nominated by the Standing Committee; under this proposal they are nominated by Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Morrison: Carefully hand-picked—and wisely.

Captain Crookshank: Hand-picked and wisely, but it does not follow that the other 42 Members have the slightest idea why anybody has been selected. It seems to me an odd definition of democracy; but this is not the moment to discuss that. Mr. Speaker, whose wisdom in this matter I am not questioning, will no doubt take advice and select the most suitable Members, but even so there is a possibility of mistake. As there is the sanction that any time given to any discussion on the time-table does come out


of the global allocation of time there is no incentive on anyone's part to prolong debate on that subject, but there may very well be occasions when it will be necessary to make an alteration. With all their wisdom and charm the seven selected Members may have overlooked some point which is of importance to some area of the country or to some industry, and not have given sufficient weight to" the need for debate on one part of the Bill or another. It is true, as my right hon. Friend said, that the analogous case for putting the Question without Debate or Amendment is that of the Closure, and that is indeed one of the reasons why we deprecate that this method should come in here, because that very fact made it look as though it were a form of Closure. My right hon. Friend wants to make this a good businesslike arrangement, and I have supported his proposal right through, and I am sure that hon. Members who were on the Committee did their best to make it workable, as has been the case with previous voluntary time-tables, but we want to guard against the possibility of error, and this does not leave any loophole. He is using words which to all who study our procedural matters are inevitably linked up with the Closure, and we think it is a pity that the word should stay in, and we hope the right hon. Gentleman will respond to this appeal.

9.4 p.m.

Mr. Morrison: If I may say another word on the subject I find it difficult to be hard-hearted in view of the reasonable spirit in which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman has put his point. I would make only two observations. One is that it is so easy for a Committee, even with no ill will, to use up a lot of time in trying to straighten out a matter of this kind. It

is ten to one that instead of straightening it out they will make it more confused than ever and use up a considerable amount of time which would be better employed in the examination of the Bill. It is not a question of the Opposition or a majority of the Committee being troublesome. It is a question of, possibly, a number of Members of the Committee being argumentative and difficult and thereby using time that in a way is unfortunate. It is not as if a genuine mistake cannot be put right. The Committee of eight will represent parties on the Committee and, therefore, various points of view will be there.

If, however, they make a mistake there will be ways of impressing that upon them by way of conversation and unofficial consultation. I am sure that, if they have really made a mistake, the Committee itself would wish it and it would be competent for the Sub-committee in that case to have another meeting and bring up another report revising the original proposal. I am sure that they would do that. I think that in the interests of all concerned it is the best way to do it. It puts a firm responsibility on the Committee of eight, which I am sure they want to try to discharge in a most sensible way. I am anxious not to encroach upon the time of the Committee for its legislative tasks. I hope we shall try out this Sessional Order and see how it works, but in the light of the information before me and my present feelings, I do not think that it would be wise to make an amendment whereby there could be a full debate on the simple business of the allocation of time within the overall time limit.

Question put, "That the word 'if' be there inserted."

The House divided: Ayes, 109; Noes, 239.

Division No. 21.]
AYES.
[9.7 p.m.


Agnew, Cmdr. P. G.
Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Hogg, Hon. Q.


Amory, Lt.-Col. D. H.
Cuthbert, W. N.
Hollis, Sqn.-Ldr. M. C.


Astor, Hon. M.
Digby, Maj. S. Wingfield
Howard, Hon. A.


Baldwin, A. E.
Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V. G. (Penrith)
Hutchison, Lt.-Cdr. Clark (Edin'gh, W.)


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Drayson, Capt. G. B.
Hutchison, Lt.-Col. J. R. (G'gow, C.)


Beattie, F. (Cathcart)
Duthie, W. S.
Jarvis, Sir J.


Birch, Lt.-Col. Nigel
Eccles, D. M.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.


Boothby, R.
Erroll, Col. F. J.
Jennings, R.


Bower, N.
Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W.


Boyd-Carpenter, Maj. J. A.
Foster, J. G. (Northwich)
Keeling, E. H.


Braithwaite, Lt. Comdr. J. G.
Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)
Lambert, G.


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W.
Gage, Lt.-Col. C.
Lindsay, Lt.-Col. M. (Solihull)


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Gates, Maj. E. E.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)


Carson, E.
Gridley, Sir A.
Lloyd, Brig. J. S. B. (Wirral)


Clifton-Browne, Lt.-Col. G.
Grimston, R. V.
Lucas, Maj. Sir J.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Harvey, Air-Cmdre. A. V.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.


Cooper-Key, Maj. E. M.
Haughton, Maj. S. G.
MacAndrew, Col. Sir C.


Crookshank, Capt Rt. Hon. H. F. C.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Mackeson, Lt.-Col. H. R.




McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Poole, Col. O. B. S. (Oswestry)
Taylor, Vice-Adm. E. A. (P'dd't'n, S.)


Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Maitland, Com dr. J. W.
Price-While, Ll.-Col. D.
Thorneycroft, G. E. P.


Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Prior-Palmar, Brig. O.
Thorp, Lt.-Col. R. A. F.


Marlowe, A. A. H.
Raikes, H. V.
Turton, R. H.


Marples, Capt. A. E.
Ramsay, Maj. S.
Vane, Lt.-Col. W. M. T.


Marshall, Comdr. D. (Bodmin)
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)
Walker-Smith, Lt.-Col. D.


Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Renton, Maj. D.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Maude, J. C.
Robinson, Wing-Comdr Roland
Wheatley, Lt.-Col. M. J.


Medlicott, Brig. F.
Ropner, Col. L.
White, Maj. J. B. (Canterbury)


Mellor, Sir J.
Ross, Sir R.
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Morrison, Rt. Hn. W. S. (Cirencester)
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)
Williams, Lt.-Cdr. G. W. (T'nbr'ge)


Neven-Spence, Major Sir B.
Smiles, Lt.-Col. Sir W.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


Nield, B.
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)
York, C.


Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Spearman, A. C. M.
Young, Maj. Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Orr-Ewing, I. L.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)



Osborne, C.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. M.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—


Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J.
Major Mott-Radclyffe and Mr. Drewe.


Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Studholme, H. G.



Pitman. I. J.
Sutcliffe, H.





NOES.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
McAdam, W.


Adamson, Mrs. J. L.
Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Mack, J. D.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
McKay, J. (Wallsend)


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Ewart, R.
McLeavy, F.


Alpass, J. H.
Farthing, W. J.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Marshall, F. (Brightside)


Attewell, H. C.
Follick, M.
Mathers, G.


Austin, H. L.
Foot, M. M.
Mayhew, Maj. C. P.


Awbery, S. S.
Forman, J. C.
Medland, H. M.


Ayles, W. H.
Foster, W. (Wigan)
Messer, F.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Freeman, P. (Newport)
Middleton, Mrs. L.


Bacon, Miss A.
Gaitskell, H. T. N.
Mitchison, Maj. G. R.


Balfour, A.
Gallacher, W.
Monslow, W.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Montague, F.


Barstow, P. G.
Gibson, C. W.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.


Barton, C.
Gooch, E. G.
Morley, R.


Battley, J. R.
Gordon-Walker, P. C.
Morris, P. (Swansea, W.)


Belcher, J. W.
Grey, C. F.
Morris, R. H. (Carmarthen)


Berry, H.
Grierson, E.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)


Bevan, Rt. Hon. A. (Ebbw Vale)
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Murray, J. D.


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)
Nally, W.


Binns, J.
Gruffydd, Prof. W. J.
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)


Blenkinsop, Capt. A.
Gunter, Capt. R. J.
Noel-Buxton, Lady


Boardman, H.
Guy, W. H.
Oliver, G. H.


Bottomley, A. G.
Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)
Orbach, M.


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Paget, R. T.


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Hardy, E. A.
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Haworth, J.
Palmer, A. M. F.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Pargiter, G. A.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Holman, P.
Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T.


Buchanan, G.
Horabin, T. L.
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)


Burden, T. W.
Hoy, J.
Paton, J. (Norwich)


Burke, W. A.
Hubbard, T.
Pearson, A.


Byers, Lt.-Col. F.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Peart, Capt. T. F.


Champion, A. J.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Piratin, P.


Clitherow, R.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Porter, G. (Leeds)


Cluse, W. S.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Pritt, D. N.


Cocks, F. S.
Jeger, Capt. G. (Winchester)
Proctor, W. T.


Coldrick, W.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Pryde, D. J.


Collindridge, F.
John, W.
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Collins, V. J.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Randall, H. E.


Colman, Miss G. M.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepools)
Ranger, J.


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Rees-Williams, Lt.-Col. D. R.


Corlett, Dr. J.
Jones, Maj. P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Corvedale, Viscount
Keenan, W.
Rhodes, H.


Daines, P.
Kenyon, C.
Ridealgh, Mrs M.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Kinley, J.
Robens, A.


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Lavers, S.
Robertson, J. J. (Berwick)


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Lawson, Rt. Hon. J. J.
Rogers, G. H. R.


Dear, G.
Lee. F. (Hulme)
Sargood, R.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Scollan, T.


Delargy, Captain H. J.
Leslie, J. R.
Scott-Elliot, W.


Diamond, J.
Lever, Fl. Off. N. H.
Segal, Sq. Ldr. S.


Donovan, T.
Levy, B. W.
Sharp, Lt.-Col. G. M.


Dribarg, T. E. N.
Lewis, J. (Bolton)
Shawcross, Cmdr. C. N. (Widnes)


Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Dumpleton, C. W.
Lindgren, G. S.
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)


Durbin, E. F. M.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Simmons, C. J.


Dye, S.
Little, Dr. J.
Skinnard, F. W.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Longden, F.
Smith, Capt. C. (Colchester)


Edelman, M.
Lyne, A. W.
Smith, Ellis (Stoke)







Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)
Tolley, L.
Wilkes, Maj. L.


Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.
Wilkins, W. A.


Smith, T. (Normanton)
Turner-Samuels, M.
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Snow, Capt. J. W.
Ungoed-Thomas, Maj. L.
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Solley, L. J.
Usborne, H. C.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Soskice, Maj. Sir F.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Sparks, J. A.
Viant, S. P.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)


Stamford, W.
Wadsworth, G.
Williams, W. R. (Heston)


Stephen, C.
Walkden, E.
Williamson, T.


Strachey, J.
Walker, G. H.
Willis, E.


Straws, G. R.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)
Wise, Major F. J.


Stringler, Capt. S.
Watkins, T. E.
Woodburn, A.


Symonds, Maj. A. L.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)
Woods, G. S.


Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)
Weitzman, D.
Yates, V. F.


Taylor, R. J. (Morpeth)
Walls, Maj. W. T. (Walsall)
Young, Sir R. (Newton)


Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)
Younger, Maj. Hon. K. G.


Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.



Thomas, John R. (Dover)
Wigg, G. E. C.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—


Thomas, George (Cardiff)
Wilcock, Group-Capt. C. A. B.
Mr. Joseph Henderson and Captain Michael Stewart.


Main Question put, and agreed to.

ADJOURNMENT GF THE HOUSE (STANDING COMMITTEES)

Resolved:

"That in order to facilitate the business of Standing Committees a motion may, after two days' notice, be made by a Minister of the Crown at the commencement of public business,

(a) "That this House do now adjourn," and if the Question thereon be not previously agreed to Mr. Speaker shall adjourn the House without Question put half an hour after such a motion has been made; or
(b) "That this House do now adjourn till a quarter past seven o'clock this day," and the Question thereon shall be decided without amendment or debate. Provided that if, on a day on which the motion is agreed to under this Order, leave has been given to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing an urgent matter of public importance, or if opposed private business has been set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means, the motion so to be decided shall be "That this House do now adjourn till a quarter past six o'clock this day." "—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]

MONEY COMMITTEES (MODIFICATION OF STANDING ORDER No. 69)

Resolved:

"That for the remainder of this Session Standing Order No. 69 shall have effect as if at the end thereof there were added 'and any resolution come to by such Committee may, with the general agreement of the House, be reported forthwith'."—[Mr. Herbert Morrison.]

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Solicitor-General, the Lord Advocate and Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland, being Members of the House, or any of them, though not Members of a Standing Committee, may take part in the deliberations of the Committee, but shall not vote.—[Mr. H. Morrison.]

9.20 p.m.

Captain Crookshank: I am afraid my hon. and right hon. Friends and I cannot agree to this at all, and I shall trouble the House very briefly with our reasons. This is not in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee. The Select Committee made no recommendation on this subject at all. If I may remind the House—and I apologise to the Chairman of the Select Committee for so doing—we said this:
One other difficulty ought to be mentioned. If six Standing Committees in addition to the Scottish were sitting concurrently, the Law Officers of the Grown of whom there are at present two, apart from the Scottish, would be in some difficulty in performing their duties in regard to the conduct of Bills. A partial solution of this difficulty might perhaps be found in the appointment of a third Law Officer. This, however, is a matter for the Government rather than your Committee.
No one can read into those words a suggestion coming from the Select Committee that this quite novel procedure should be adopted. If the House wants to know where this proposal came from, it came from the Lord President himself, because if the report of the evidence is available to hon. Members, they will see that in reply to Question No. 268 the right hon. Gentleman did raise the question of the Law Officers and said there was going to be a difficulty—which we all admit; no one is going to say that it is an easy position for the Law Officers if there are six or seven Standing Committees sitting simultaneously. This is what the right hon. Gentleman the Lord President said, and what I particularly want to bring to the notice of the House:
There is a problem with the Law Officers, if they are going to be tied to one Committee, and the solution which seems to me perhaps to be the right one, subject to the view of the Select Committee, would be that the Law


Officers should have the right of attendance and the right of speech, without the right of voting.
The right hon. Gentleman expresses that opinion, it seems to me, subject to the views of the Select Committee, but the views of the Select Committee were not anything of the kind, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman is doing this on behalf of the Government, entirely without the advice of those hon. Gentlemen who were appointed by the House to the Select Committee to give advice. That absolves the Select Committee from having anything to do with this recommendation. I just make the point. It is surely a generally-accepted principle that all Members of this House have equal rights in the House, and I cannot see why this House should deprive the Law Officers attending a Select Committee of the right to vote. They would be going from Committee to Committee, because their advice might be required now here and now there, and surely the solution is that they should be members of all the Committees, the same as other hon. Members. There are plenty of hon. Members whose names appear as members of more than one Standing Committee, or of one Standing Committee or of one Select Committee, or even of one Standing and two Select Committees—which is my own case—simultaneously. An hon. Member in that position has to judge for himself which is the right one, where he should be at a particular moment.
It is not unusual for hon. Members to attend one Committee to deal with one Clause and then go to another Committee to deal with another Clause. They are members of both Committees and are entitled, should a division be called, to vote in both Committees even on the same morning. The Law Officers should be put in exactly the same position. I do recognise this difficulty, that of course if you put all the Law Officers on one Committee and they are wanted elsewhere, the Government supporters are minus four if a division is called while they are not there. I would however put it to the House that we are dealing here with a Sessional Order, and an experimental one at that, and there is no likelihood during this Session of any great alteration in the balance of the political parties. Standing Committees after all are set up with a view to being, as nearly as may be, a reflection of the proportionate position

of the parties in the House as a whole. Therefore, I do not think the fact that there were two Law Officers who, at a particular moment, because they were somewhere else, did not vote, would be likely to endanger the passage through Standing Committee of a Government Bill. I understand that already some Amendments have even been carried against the Government in Standing Committees, whether the Law Officers were or were not Members, or had or had not a vote. Therefore, that argument, as long as we are dealing with the present situation, is not a good one.
I deprecate the idea that any hon. Members should be entitled to come to Standing Committees and give advice, and not be full Members of the Committee. It seems to me that would be a dangerous precedent to create. We have never done anything of the kind before. It might easily lead to a proposal that Ministers should not be full Members of a Standing Committee. It often happens, for example, that a Bill which is primarily the responsibility of one Minister affects a number of Departments. It has often been the case that it would have been useful if, perhaps, the Foreign Secretary or the Secretary of State for India, or some other Minister who had nothing to do with the main structure of the Bill, could have come in and expressed his views on an Amendment, a new Clause, or a Clause in the Bill. That, however, has never been our theory. The theory has been that of the collective responsibility of Ministers, and that Ministers should be able to speak for other Ministers whose interests arise during the passage of a Bill but who, for one reason or another, could not be present in the House, or could not be present in a Standing Committee because they were not Members of it. I do not speak with any disrespect to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor-General. We are simply not anxious to segregate the Law Officers from the general company of the rest of us. We feel they ought to share our burdens and responsibilities, and ought to be Members of Standing Committees only when they have full voting powers. I cannot think of any reason why this Standing Order should have been proposed. It is contrary to anything that is in the Select Committee's Report. The Lord President of the Council made the suggestion, and said that he would consider it, subject to


the views of the Select Committee. The Select Committee not having recommended anything of the kind, I recommend the House not to accept the Order.

9.27 p.m.

Mr. J. S. C. Reid: The first thing I want to say is that whoever drafted this Order has got it wrong, because traditionally the order of seniority of the Law Officers is the Attorney-General, the Lord Advocate, the Solicitor-General, and the Solicitor-General for Scotland. As a former occupant of the Office of Lord Advocate, I feel bound to see that the precedence of that Office is upheld. 
I am afraid the Law Officers do not quite realise what they are letting themselves in for. I have never been a Member of more than two Standing Committees at the same time, but my experience is that whichever one I went to, the other one said I ought to have been there and that something arose with which I should have dealt. Every one of the six Standing Committees is going to say, "There are three Law Officers available"—the Solicitor-General for Scotland is not a Member of the House at present—"they are all entitled to attend the Standing Committees and address them, and if we cannot have one of the three, we must make a bit of fuss about it." There will be continual trouble of that sort in the Standing Committees. I suggest to the Solicitor-General, who is the only Law Officer here to-night, that he ought to think again about this matter, or there will be great difficulty. There will be Law Officers running from one Standing Committee to another and not really being able to deal adequately with the questions that arise in any one of them. I hope there will be second thoughts about this question.

9.30 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Major Sir Frank Soskice): May I say at the outset that we, on this side of the House, accept the Amendment—which is not down on the Order Paper, but which is proposed—to the Motion in the name of the Leader of the House, that the words "but shall not vote" shall be excluded. It is not as I say on the Order Paper, but the criticism of the Motion was that it might be more satisfactory, if the Law Officers were Members of the Committee and had the

right to vote, as well as take part in the proceedings. That we at once accept. That is the criticism advanced by the right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank)—

Captain Crookshank: Is the hon. and learned Gentleman rising to move a manuscript Amendment?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Hubert Beaumont): I think the Amendment must first be moved.

Captain Crookshank: Where are we?

The Solicitor-General: I rose to support the Motion. I simply intimated that we, on this side of the House, were in sympathy with the criticisms made by the right hon. and gallant Member for Gains borough. The Motion is down on the Order Paper with the words "but shall not vote," and, if those words are not excluded—

Captain Crookshank: While preparations are being made to move the Amendment indicated may I ask the Solicitor General why they were not made previously? I really do not know where we are. Is there to be an Amendment or not?

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): We thought we were being conciliatory to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. We are all in your hands, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but we would be prepared, if you regard it as a proper procedure, to accept an Amendment to leave out those last words.

Captain Crookshank: I quite agree that our point was on the words "but shall not vote," but I am not yet certain that the words of the Motion are apt, because it will then read that the Law Officers "may take part in the deliberations of the Committee." What does that mean? It does not mean anything. The Motion will have to be recast.

Mr. Dalton: We were trying to meet that point.

Captain Crookshank: I quite agree, but we must do it effectively.

Mr. Boothby: On a point of Order. May I ask what we are actually discussing?

The Solicitor-General: rose—

Hon. Members: Order, order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I think I should have to rule out discussion on any Amendment which is to be moved. We are now discussing the Motion on the Order Paper.

Sir Ronald Ross: The Solicitor-General was discussing the matter on the basis that there would be a manuscript Amendment, which has not been moved. Surely, we are not in Order in discussing that situation until such an Amendment is, in fact, moved. As it has been suggested by the Government, it is surely for the Government to move that Amendment and not to suggest to anybody they happen to pick from the Opposition to move it for them?

Mr. Stephen: rose—

Mr. Sydney Silverman: I understand, subject to your correction, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, that what is before the House at this moment is the Motion in the name of the Lord President of the Council. I understand that some dissatisfaction has been expressed with that Motion from the other side of the House. Is it not then, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, in your view the duty of those who are dissatisfied with the Motion to move an Amendment to it if they desire any alteration?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I can only deal with one point of Order at a time. It is not for me to indicate what should be the duty or desire of either side of the House. At present, the Motion before the House is the one which I read.

Mr. Stephen: On this point of Order, may I submit that a Motion has been moved, and criticism of that Motion has been made, and the Solicitor-General has said that the Government, while putting forward the Motion, are prepared to accept an Amendment, if the Opposition like to move it?

Earl Winterton: No, he did not say so.

The Solicitor-General: Can we see exactly where we have got to? A Motion was down on the Paper. I rose to support it. I rose as the result of observations made by two right hon. Members

opposite. One set of observations contained a criticism of the Motion. I indicated that we, on this side of the House, felt some sympathy with that criticism. If there had been—although there is not—an Amendment down on the Paper to give effect to that criticism, we would have been prepared to receive it sympathetically. As I say, there is, in fact, no such Amendment down on the Paper. We on this side of the House have not, in the Motion which we put down on the Paper, embodied it, and we do not intend to embody it. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] We were trying to be conciliatory and we gave hon. Members opposite every opportunity—(Interruption). I said, in point of fact, that we were in sympathy with the criticism. The criticism is not on the Paper in any concrete form, and that is the end of it.

Captain Crookshank: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Surely there is no need for an Amendment, when it is intended to move to negative the new Order because the effect of negativing the new Order is that it is perfectly open to the Law Officers, under present procedure, to be put on Standing Committees, and the question of their voting does not arise. Am I not correct in my interpretation of the Rules of the House?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: That is the correct interpretation.

Captain Crookshank: That is right? And by moving to negative this, I would have done, not only all that is necessary from my point of view, but all' that is necessary to meet the desires of the Solicitor-General.

The Solicitor-General: rose—

Mr. Turner-Samuels: On a point of Order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, the matter is not nearly as complicated as hon. Members on the opposite benches want to make out. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in response to what was said by the right hon. Gentleman, stated that the Government were prepared to delete the, last four words. Well, it follows logically from that, having regard to the objection that was then taken—because it was said that the words might not be in Order—that all that is needed is to put the words "as members" after the word


"deliberations" in the Motion, so that it would read:
…in the deliberations as members of the Committee.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member is making a speech whereas he rose to a point of Order.

9.39 p.m.

The Solicitor-General: I think we have cleared our decks a little, and the net result of all the discussion is that there is this Motion on the Paper and I support it. I make no further reference to the criticism that has been made, beyond saying that the object of the Motion is that, for good reasons or bad, these Law Officers shall be enabled to take part in the deliberations of Standing Committees, although they are not members of those Committees. If the view commends itself to hon. Gentlemen opposite that they should be members, so let it be. But the Motion as it stands is the Motion I support.
The Lord President of the Council, in opening the discussion today, intimated that the question of appointing a third Law Officer had been considered, that being the remedy suggested for an admitted defect in the findings of the Select Committee. That was subsequently rejected—and I think I detected a considerable degree of approval by hon. Gentlemen opposite—the view being that it was undesirable to increase Ministers beyond the present number. That having been rejected as a solution, and there being an admitted difficulty, it remains to adopt the solution embodied in the Motion on the Paper, namely, that the Law Officers should be entitled to take part in the deliberations of Standing Committee, with a view to affording such assistance, if any, as they are able to afford. I feel some slight embarrassment in urging the advantages on the House of the presence of Law Officers on Standing Committees, but if, for the purpose of my argument, I may assume it is accepted that it has advantages, I submit that, as a logical sequence, it would be of assistance to the Committee if the Law Officers were able to go from one Committee to another, to take part in their deliberations, on those particular aspects of the Bills being considered, which involve legal questions and legal perplexities. For those reasons I commend the Motion to the House.
May I make one observation in reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Hillhead (Mr. J. S. C. Reid)? I hope that, in view of the nature of the error to which he calls attention in the form of the Motion, he will not suspect that I am the draftsman. May I, on behalf of our side of the House, tender our apologies to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for what is obviously a mistake in draftsmanship, which should not have been made?

943 p.m.

Mr. Boothby: We have listened with great interest to the speech of the Solicitor-General, and I am glad that he has corrected a most unfortunate mistake. He has acknowledged the gravity of the error of His Majesty's Government in not according the Lord Advocate his proper position. There is a question of considerable importance of principle involved, namely, whether any Members of any legislative body should sit and speak in that body, without having the right to vote. It is a question on which I feel very strongly. It opens up a completely new precedent. Hon. Members can see that we may be left with the admission that Ministers have their right to address both Houses of Parliament, without voting in one or the other. I submit that His Majesty's Government have been so impressed with the arguments made by the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on the Opposition Front Bench that they are prepared to concede this vital point. It is not for them to say to us: "You stick in a manuscript Amendment at ten seconds' notice." It is for His Majesty's Government to get up and say, "We are so impressed by the ability and strength of the arguments addressed to the House by the Opposition Front Bench, that we propose ourselves, immediately, to take steps to rectify the error into which we have fallen."

945 p.m.

Mr. Pritt: I cannot help thinking that the Opposition are making rather heavy weather of this. I urge the Solicitor-General and the Government to stand firm. I want to see what the Opposition says about the merits of the matter. The right hon. and gallant Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) says the true solution is to make them Members of the Committee. I think it is, in some ways, more useful to


have the Committee fully constituted with people who can vote, and let the Law Officers give their advice as and when needed. The hon. Gentleman asks whether it is realised what a heavy job is being laid upon the Law Officers. That is no argument. Whether they are made Members or not, their job is the same, to explain the legal position, and it is, of course, a heavy task. But as a matter of fact the task of going from body to body, whether a court or anything else, explaining the position, is the one thing which lawyers learn, and the Law Officers will do it. I have been in Parliament for 10 years and I have been at the Bar for some 35 years. I have seen Law Officers of considerable variety, very good and very bad, but all have been capable of going to court and explaining the position. I do not think there is any difficulty about it.
The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) says there is a question of principle. I suppose there is, but we on this side of the House did not come here with the overwhelming approval of the country, in order to leave every question of principle exactly as it always was. If hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite had stuck to all their principles this country would still be doing hand-loom weaving. I can remember a member of the Derby family moving a Bill to destroy half the spindles in Lancashire.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Major Milner): The hon. and learned Gentleman should speak on the Motion.

Mr. Pritt: To deal with the question of principle, how much does it matter? There are the Committees constituted; they are grouped, roughly, in proportion to the representation of parties in the House. Rather than disturb that representation, rather than make it almost permanently short by reason of the Law Officers being Members of every Committee, and somebody else therefore being left off, is it not fair and reasonable to say that the Law Officers can come along without having a vote? It is a sensible principle to lay down. It is almost visible to the naked eye and is perfectly harmless. As to another argument which has been used, who would be a penny the worse if a Minister addressed both Houses of Parliament, particularly if he was reasonably competent, as these are? I do not think the Government need my encouragement to stand firm.

9.48 p.m.

Mr. Charles Williams: The Conservative Party is always unfortunate in that we can be told by the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmoth (Mr. Pritt) how very stupid we are. We realise that, after the innumerable times he has addressed us, but it does not say a great deal for his skill if he has not taught us a great deal about procedure and other things. I understand he is a very able lawyer. I hope he has better luck in the courts than here.

Mr. Pritt: In the courts I have very much less difficult material with which to work.

Mr. Williams: Possibly. I can quite understand that the hon. and learned Member would be more at home under those circumstances.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member should address himself to the Motion.

Mr. Williams: The hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith is dealing with other material, recently elected, I understand. If I may come to this particular Motion, I would say there is a good deal in the principle we have always laid down—it may not matter to some but I believe it matters to the House as a whole—that as far as it is a matter of a Committee or of the whole House that a member of a Committee is the only person who can address that Committee. Under this Motion, what you are laying down is that two or three Members of Parliament, because they are Law Officers, can come in, give their opinion to that Committee, and then leave it. If we give the Government that right, why in the world should not the Opposition also have the right to send one of their legal experts to put the other side of the case? That is a perfectly just claim.
I am trying to be conciliatory and to help the Government. In days past, you always had one Law Officer, or two, on a Committee. Now they must have three or four Law Officers; otherwise, the Opposition is so able that, unless they have Law Officers available at any time, they have no chance of putting up a reasonable case. That is really a change in our principle, and, as has already been pointed out, if we are to begin this principle of certain selected Members addressing a Committee, why not allow


others to put a case not only to select Committees, but also in another place?
We have got through a great deal of business in a very easy and simple way, because it has been almost entirely agreed. But there is a real definite divergence of opinion on this matter, of whether you should allow any hon. Member, however learned and however able, to go to a Committee and address it, and then go away and not take part in the real proceedings of that Committee. That is a definite principle. If the Government say they are going to enforce it, they have got their majority and can do it. It is a big principle, and it is not one which has ever been laid down on any other programme. I say, quite frankly, that I think it is a bad thing that the House, on an occasion such as this, should make a change of this kind which is, as I understand it, totally against the whole of the voting procedure of the House of Commons, whether it is in Standing Committee, or any other form of Committee.

9.54 p.m.

Earl Winterton: I beg to move, in line 3, to leave out "the" and to insert this."
I wish to call the attention of the House to a mistake in this Motion—a wrong description. In the third line the words used are "of the House." I think it is in the recollection of all, at any rate the old Members, that the description is always "of this House." In the next two Motions to be dealt with, the term "of this House" is used. As there is a considerable discrepancy between the two forms, and in order to be in accord with what has been the custom, I move this manuscript Amendment.

9.55 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I have made inquiries, and I am assured that, on balance, as between "the" and "this," the Noble Lord is right. I thought it might perhaps assuage the situation, if, having been out not for a cup of tea but for more solid refreshment, I came back and accepted the Amendment right away, which I do. I think the Noble Lord has dropped on a point on which, on balance, he is right. On any point on which the Opposition is right, we try to do the right thing, and I therefore urge the House to accept this Amendment.

Thereafter, I will advise the House to accept a point of substance which, in the light of the present sweet reasonableness, I trust they will accept.

Mr. Gordon-Walker: On a point of Order. In the previous Resolution we have already agreed to the words "the House."

Captain Crookshank: On a further point of Order. In a Resolution before that, we agreed to both "the" and "this."

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: rose—

Mr. Quintin Hogg: rose—

Hon. Members: Order.

9.57 p.m.

Mr. Hogg: The House will assuredly be grateful to so many hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway who are anxious to assist you in your conduct of the proceedings, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, but perhaps they will forgive me if I invite the Lord President to give us the advice, which he said a few moments ago he would give, because I am bound to say that I, at least, find myself in a certain amount of perplexity. I was glad to see the Lord President come back into the House in order that he might remove, as I am sure he will, the perplexity of one who has such a limited experience of administrative responsibility. My perplexity arises oat of this fact. The Motion before the House—[HON. MEMBERS: "This House"]—really consists of two propositions. The first is that the Law Officers should have the right to take part in the deliberations of the Committees, and the second is that they should also have the right to vote. When the learned Solicitor-General first addressed this House on this subject, there was, I think, a certain amount of misunderstanding about what he had or had not said. I do not think there was any misunderstanding about this point, that he accepted the proposition that the Law Officers should be allowed to vote in these Committees. Whether he was moving an Amendment, or asking my hon. Friend to move an Amendment, or whether he was asking for a negative Resolution, that proposition was conceded. What I want to ask the Lord President is this: Supposing that that proposition is conceded—namely, that the right to vote is accorded to the Law


Officers when they take part in the deliberations—what need is there for the rest of the Motion? Under the existing regulations the Law Officers can be made members of all the Standing Committees and vote in the ordinary way, and the reason I am perplexed is that the Government, having in the hearing of the whole House conceded the proposal that the Law Officers should vote in Standing Committees, ought to make out some case to support the rest of the Resolution. Otherwise, I think the House would be justified in negativing it as being wholly redundant. Indeed—and again I may be wrong—I believe that there was a certain amount of confusion in the Government counsels on this, because I believe that the learned Solicitor-General, with his well known reasonableness, was about to concede this point when the Chancellor of the Exchequer pulled him down.

10.3 p.m.

Sir Ronald Ross: The difficulty here is that the Government have, as I understand it, conceded the point about the Law Officers voting. In the country the Government say that they are going to do what is right, but it is either right that the Law Officers should vote or it is not and the point that is now being put is one of expediency. If the Government think it is right that the Law Officers should vote surely, taking the stand they do that they intend to do what is right, they should see that the Law Officers do vote. If, on the other hand, they are treating the matter as one of expediency, and saying, "Let us toss up" or "It does not matter," I do not think they are living up to their traditions. I had not expected much from them, but I had expected more than that. The Government are constantly saying that they have been sent here with a tremendous mandate to do what is right, and then they say "If you do not like it, we will toss up," and they call in the partisan, the hon. and learned Member for North Hammersmith (Mr. Pritt).

Mr. Pritt: They do not call upon me. I am not even a member of their party.

Sir R. Ross: The hon. and learned Member is "working his passage."

Mr. Pritt: rose—

Sir R. Ross: I do not see why I should five way to the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. Pritt: On a point of Order. Is it not in accordance with the practice and traditions of the House that if a Member attacks another Member he should give way to allow him to answer?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Much depends on the circumstances.

Sir R. Ross: I hope that I have not offended the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. Pritt: rose—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. and learned Member is not entitled to speak, unless the hon. Member addressing the House gives way.

Sir R. Ross: My intervention was largely in the interests of the Law Officers themselves. It is bad enough where a lawyer is expected by his clients to be in three courts at once, but if a Law Officer is expected to be in six Committees at the same time, and hon. Members opposite call frequently for the guidance of a Law Officer, then the Law Officers will be placed in a very anomalous position. The main point is: Do the Government think it right that they should vote, or are they trying to bring in an entirely fresh and revolutionary principle of people coming to Committees and taking part in their deliberations and not being allowed to vote? An utterly new principle of that kind should not be introduced at this late hour of the night.

10.6 p.m.

Major Lloyd: I desire to emphasise a point which has not been brought sufficiently into this Motion as it stands now on the Order Paper, subject to the important Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton) In this Motion it is provided that the Law Officers shall not vote. The point I want to bring to the attention of the House is that the Government, in putting down the Motion, are deliberately trying to disfranchise the Law Officers. Surely, these right hon. and learned Gentlemen represent constituents: how can they represent constituents when, on important Committees, they are not allowed to vote? It is a strange kind of unconstitutional procedure, quite undemocratic, which the Government are asking us to approve in this Motion. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman, the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) was puzzled why the Motion was on the Order


Paper at all. The Committee never recommended it. Obviously, the idea originated in the fertile brain of the right hon. Gentleman, the Lord President of the Council. Of course, we really know why it was, and I have no doubt my right hon. Friend knows but he could not say it from the Front bench. The real reason is that the Government know that they cannot do without the assistance of the right hon. and learned Gentlemen who are mentioned in this way. They are dependent upon them for understanding their own Bills. How many of the Members on the Front Bench opposite really understand their own Bills? We know this is the real reason.

10.8 p.m.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: We are all trying to clear up a murky situation. In order to bring illumination into the darkness may I add a few observations on the matter? It is clear in my recollection and, I think, of the whole House, that in the course of one of his replies the learned Solicitor-General said that, if the Opposition wished the Law Officers to be proper and full Members of the Committees, "so let it be. "These were his words, which I took to mean, that the Government had not only conceded the requirement that the Law Officers should vote, but also that they should become proper Members of the Committee. If that is the intention of the Government, and if the Lord President of the Council would accept, approve and confirm the statement of his colleague, there is no need for this Motion at all. The proper thing for the Government to do and so save the time of the House would be to withdraw the Motion from the Paper.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. H. Morrison: I am bound to say there is an extraordinary change in the atmosphere of the House since I went out to get a modest supper. Before I left there was a spirit of "sweetness and light" in the discussion. I admit that just as I went out, I heard the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) speaking a little in the spirit of 1929 and 1931 but now when I come back, I find an electric atmosphere almost of bitterness. I wonder what it is all about. I did try to sweeten things a

little by accepting the Amendment of the noble Lord (Earl Winterton), a proceeding which I thought would be received with such surprise and pleasure by the Opposition that we would swing the rest of the proceedings through.
The thing is perfectly simple. I cannot follow what all the excitement is about. The Select Committee's report said:
One other difficulty ought to be mentioned. If six Standing Committees in addition to the Scottish were sitting concurrently, the Law Officers of the Crown, of whom there are at present two, apart from the Scottish, would have some difficulty in performing their duties in regard to the conduct of Bills. A partial solution of this difficulty might perhaps be found in the appointment of a third Law Officer. This, however, is a matter for the Government rather than your Committee.
A very proper observation on the part of the Committee. We are the Government and we are making a pronouncement on the issue which we have every right to do. When one is going to say something nice about a person, one says, "If I may say so," and I said, "subject to the views of the Committee." That meant I am not going to dictate to the Committee in any way, but to suggest that that made me subservient to any recommendation the Committee may make to the House, is far too optimistic a suggestion in relation to the Lord President of the Council. This is evidently an instance of the Opposition getting itself tied up in knots about something which is perfectly simple. We are on velvet. We know where we are and we are going to stay there. There is not the least confusion on this side of the House.
The problem is, that under these proposals, there will be an increased number of Standing Committees. They will go up in number materially. At any fate, that is contemplated. Therefore, if the Standing Committees are going to have the best possible service from the Law Officers, then if we do not increase the number of Ministers by adding to the Law Officers, we must make it possible for the advice of the Law Officers to be available to the maximum possible extent to this series of Standing Committees. How are we to do it? That is the simple problem. It is not a case of the Government imposing the Law Officers on the Standing Committees, but of the Government doing their best, when on the Committees, there are clamorous cries for the


advice of the Law Officers of the Crown. When these pathetic cries go up we do our best to meet them. We anticipate that, as often as not, the cry will go up from the Opposition arid here we are trying to meet the Opposition and we are being treated with very little gratitude in the matter.
There are several ways of doing it. We can make the Law Officers ex officio members of every Standing Committee. It would suit the Opposition very well but it does not suit me. If the four Law Officers are to be ex officiomembers of the Standing Committees, it is perfectly clear they cannot be regular in their attendance all the time at all the Standing Committees and we would be giving up two Law Officers and His Majesty's Government do not propose to weaken their representation on the Committees to that extent. Something else could be done. I throw this suggestion to the Opposition. I do not advise them to accept it, but since they are in a receptive mood I put this to them. We could alternatively provide that the Law Officers shall be ex officio members of every Standing Committee, with the right to vote ex officio. [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] Hon. Members like that? There is, however, some little restraint operating, and it is right that there should be, because this suggestion would present the Government with an additional Member beyond their proportionate share. I do not make such a proposal. I am far too modest; but if the Opposition insisted upon it, I would consent to give the matter favourable consideration. The fact is that both those proposals are unjust; one is unjust to the Government and the other to the Opposition.
What do we propose? We say that we want the Law Officers to be available, to the maximum practicable and reasonable extent, to the Standing Committees. When they are wanted they will go in, make their observations and help the Standing Committee to the maximum extent, and not vote in the decision on the subject in hand. What is wrong about that? It is merely a matter of finding a way in which the expert, technical advice of the Law Officers can be available without infringing-the principle that the representation of the Committees is on the basis of the strength of parties. That is all there is about it. It seems practical common sense, and there is no reason-

able argument against it. I cannot for the life of me make out why, because I want to have a little nourishment—which, believe me, I badly needed—all this excitement has been aroused and all this time has been lost. I hope that hon. Members opposite will withdraw their apposition to the proposal. If they do not feel able to do so, I hope that we shall take a vote on it and allow the House to decide.

10.18 p.m.

Mr. Manningham-Buller: If I understood the argument of the Lord President of the Council, he is proposing that the offices of Attorney-General and Solicitor-General shall be reduced from their present level to that of Parliamentary counsel. The Lord President of the Council, in trying to pour oil on troubled waters, completely ignored what was said by the Solicitor-General and there was no mistake about what he said. He said that he was perfectly prepared to accept the deletion of the words "but shall not vote." That means that the rest of the Motion is completely unnecessary. [Hon. Members: "Why?"] I paid the greatest possible attention to all that has been said by hon. Members opposite, and apart from ridicule, a little derision and references to cups of tea and solid meals, there has been not one word to justify this radical innovation. If provision is being made for the attendance of the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General as Parliamentary counsel, can the Opposition invite Parliamentary counsel to come and argue this or that? That is what we have been asked to decide. I should have thought that the Law Officers would be in the most embarrassing position when present at Committees as Members of this House if they are able to vote one way or the other, although representing thousands of constituents. To say this is a small thing involving no constitutional principle, is nonsense.
There are all sorts of defects in the Motion. First of all, the Lord Advocate was put in the wrong place. The Government admitted that. Then there was the Noble Lord's Amendment, which was accepted. Then the Solicitor-General said at the outset that those words at the end of the Motion might just as well be deleted. I suggest that we ought not to pass Motions in this form. I ask the


Government to consider, even now, whether they could not put the Motion in a proper form, and try to meet the desires of this side of the House as well as gratify

their wish to exercise their large majority and what they call their mandate.

Main Question, as amended, put.

The House divided: Ayes, 222; Noes. 105.

Division No. 22.]
AYES.
10.22 p.m.


Adams, W. T. (Hammersmith, South)
Gruffydd, Prot. W. J.
Randall, H. E.


Allen, A. C. (Bosworth)
Gunter, Capt. R. J.
Ranger, J.


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Guy, W. H.
Rees-Williams, Lieut.-Col. D. R.


Alpass, J. H.
Haire, Flt.-Lieut. J. (Wycombe)
Reid, T. (Swindon)


Anderson, F. (Whitehaven)
Hall, W. G. (Colne Valley)
Rhodes, H.


Attewell, H. C.
Hardy, E. A.
Ridealgh, Mrs. M.


Austin, H. L.
Hastings, Dr. Somerville
Robens, A.


Awbery, S. S.
Haworth, J.
Roberts, G. O. (Caernarvonshire)


Ayles, W. H.
Henderson, A. (Kingswinford)
Rogers, G. H. R.


Ayrton Gould, Mrs. B.
Henderson, J. (Ardwick)
Sargood, R.


Bacon, Miss A.
Hewitson, Captain M.
Scollan, T.


Balfour, A.
Holman, P.
Scott-Elliot, W.


Barnes, Rt. Hon. A. J.
Hudson, J. H. (Ealing, W.)
Segal, Sqn.-Ldr. S.


Barstow, P. G.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Sharp, Lieut.-Col. G. M.


Barton, C.
Jeger, Capt. G. (Winchester)
Shawcross, Cmdr. C. N. (Widnes)


Battley, J. R.
Jeger, Dr. S. W. (St. Pancras, S.E.)
Silverman, J. (Erdington)


Belcher, J. W.
Jones, A. C. (Shipley)
Silverman, S. S. (Nelson)


Bing, Capt. G. H. C.
Jones, D. T. (Hartlepoole)
Simmons, C. J.


Binns, J.
Jones, J. H. (Bolton)
Skinnard, F. W.


Blenkinsop, Capt. A.
Jones, Maj. P. Asterley (Hitchin)
Smith, Capt. C. (Colchester)


Boardman, H.
Keenan, W.
Smith, Elllis (Stoke)


Bottomley, A. G.
Kenyon, C.
Smith, Norman (Nottingham, S.)


Bowles, F. G. (Nuneaton)
Kinley, J.
Smith, S. H. (Hull, S.W.)


Braddock, Mrs. E. M. (L'p'l, Exch'ge)
Lee, F. (Hulme)
Smith, T. (Normanton)


Braddock, T. (Mitcham)
Lee, Miss J. (Cannock)
Snow, Capt. J. W.


Brook, D. (Halifax)
Lever, Fl.-Off. N. H.
Solley, L. J.


Brooks, T. J. (Rothwell)
Levy, B. W.
Soskice, Maj. Sir F.


Brown, T. J. (Ince)
Lewis, J. (Bolton)
Sparks, J. A.


Burden, T. W.
Lewis, T. (Southampton)
Stamford, W.


Burke, W. A.
Lindgren, G. S.
Stephen, C.


Champion, A. J.
Lipton, Lt.-Col. M.
Stewart, Capt. M. (Fulham)


Chetwynd, Capt. G. R.
Longden, F.
Strauss, G. R.


Clitheroe, R.
Lyne, A. W.
Sunderland, J. W.


Cluse, W. S.
McAdam, W.
Swingler, Capt. S.


Cocks, F. S.
Mack, J. D.
Symonds, Maj. A. L.


Coldrick, W.
McKay, J. (Wallsend)
Taylor, H. B. (Mansfield)


Collindridge, F.
McLeavy, F.
Thomas, Ivor (Keighley)


Colman, Miss G. M.
Mallalieu, J. P. W.
Thomas, I. O. (Wrekin)


Corbet, Mrs. F. K. (Camb'well, N.W.)
Marshall, F. (Brightside)
Thomas, John R. (Dover)


Corlett, Dr. J.
Mayhew, Maj. C. P.
Thomas, George (Cardiff)


Daines, P.
Medland, H. M.
Tolley, L.


Dalton, Rt. Hon. H.
Messer, F.
Tomlinson, Rt. Hon. G.


Davies, Edward (Burslem)
Middleton, Mrs. L.
Turner-Samuels, M.


Davies, Harold (Leek)
Mikardo, Ian
Ungoed-Thomas, Maj. L.


Davies, Haydn (St. Pancras, S.W.)
Mitchison, Maj. G. R.
Usborne, H. C.


Deer, G.
Monslow, W.
Vernon, Maj. W. F.


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Montague, F.
Viant, S. P.


Delargy, Captain H. J.
Moody, A. S.
Walkden, E.


Diamond, J.
Morgan, Dr. H. B.
Walker, G. H.


Donovan, T.
Morley, R.
Wallace, G. D. (Chislehurst)


Driberg, T. E. N.
Morrison, Rt. Hon. H. (Lewisham, E.)
Watkins, T. E.


Dugdale, J. (W. Bromwich)
Murray, J. D.
Webb, M. (Bradford, C.)


Dumpleton, C. W.
Nally, W.
Weitzman, D.


Durbin, E. F. M.
Nichol, Mrs. M. E. (Bradford, N.)
Wells, Maj. W. T. (Walsall)


Dye, S.
Noel-Buxton, Lady
White, H. (Derbyshire, N.E.)


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Oliver, G. H.
Whiteley, Rt. Hon. W.


Edelman, M.
Orbach, M.
Wilkes, Maj. L.


Edwards, N. (Caerphilly)
Paget, R. T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Edwards, W. J. (Whitechapel)
Paling, Rt. Hon. Wilfred (Wentworth)
Willey, F. T. (Sunderland)


Evans, E. (Lowestoft)
Paling, Will T. (Dewsbury)
Willey, O. G. (Cleveland)


Farthing, W. J.
Palmer, A. M. F.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Fletcher, E. G. M. (Islington, E.)
Pargiter, G. A.
Williams, J. L. (Kelvingrove)


Follick, M.
Parkin, Flt.-Lieut. B. T.
Williams, W. R (Heston)


Foot, M. M.
Paton, Mrs. F. (Rushcliffe)
Willamson, T.


Foster, W. (Wigan)
Paton, J. (Norwich)
Willis, E.


Freeman, P. (Newport)
Pearson, A.
Wilmot, Rt. Hon. J.


Gaitskell, H. T. N.
Peart, Capt. T. F.
Wilson, J. H.


Gallacher, W.
Perrins, W.
Wise, Major F. J.


Gibson, C. W.
Piratin, P.
Woodburn, A


Gooch, E. G.
Porter, E. (Warrington)
Woods, G. S.


Gordon-Walker, P. G.
Porter, G. (Leeds)
Yates, V. F.


Grey, C. F.
Pritt, D. N.
Younger, Maj. Hon. K. G.


Grierson, E.
Proctor, W. T.



Griffiths, Rt. Hon. J. (Llanelly)
Pryde, D. J.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:—


Griffiths, Capt. W. D. (Moss Side)
Pursey, Cmdr H.
Mr. Mathers and Mr. Robert Taylor.




Amory, Lt.-Col. D. H.
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Pitman, I. J.


Astor, Hon. M.
Hogg, Hon. Q.
Poole, Col. O. B. S. (Oswestry)


Baldwin, A. E.
Hollis, Sqn.-Ldr. M. C.
Prescott, Capt. W. R. S.


Beamish, Maj. T. V. H.
Howard, Hon. A.
Price-White, Lt.-Col. D.


Birch, Lt.-Col. Nigel
Hutchison, Lt.-Col. J. R. (G'gow, C.)
Raikes, H. V.


Boothby, R.
Jeffreys, General Sir G.
Reid, Rt. Hon. J. S. C. (Hillhead)


Bower, N.
Jennings, K.
Roberts, Maj. P. G. (Ecclesall)


Boyd Carpenter, Maj. J. A.
Joynson-Hicks, Lt.-Cdr. Hon. L. W.
Robinson, Wing-Comdr Roland


Braithwaite, Lieut.-Cmdr. J. G.
Keeling, E. H.
Ross, Sir R.


Bromley-Davenport, Lieut.-Col. W.
Lambert, G.
Sanderson, Sir F.


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Lindsay, Lt.-Col. M. (Solihull)
Shepherd, W. S. (Bucklow)


Carson, E.
Lloyd, Maj. Guy (Renfrew, E.)
Smith, E. P. (Ashford)


Clifton-Brown, Lt.-Col. G.
Lloyd, Brig. J. S. B. (Wirral)
Spearman, A. C. M.


Conant, Maj. R. J. E.
Lucas, Major Sir J.
Stewart, J. Henderson (Fife, E.)


Cooper-Key, Maj. E. M.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir H.
Stoddart-Scott, Lieut.-Col. M.


Crookshank, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. F.
Mackeson, Lieut.-Col. H. R.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. J.


Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.
McKie, J. H. (Galloway)
Studholme, H. G.


Cuthbert, W. N.
Maclean, Brig. F. H. R. (Lancaster)
Sutcliffe, H.


Darling, Sir W. Y.
Maitland, Comdr. J. W.
Thomas, J. P. L. (Hereford)


Digby, Maj. S. Wingfield
Manningham-Buller, R. E.
Thorneycroft, G. E (Monmouth)


Dower, Lt.-Col. A. V.G. (Penrith)
Marlowe, A. A. H.
Thorp, Lieut.-Col. R. A. F.


Dower, E. L. G. (Caithness)
Marples, Capt. A. E.
Turton, R. H.


Drayson, Capt. G. B.
Marshall, Comdr. D. (Bodmin)
Vane, Lt.-Col. W. M. T.


Duthie, W. S.
Marshall, S. H. (Sutton)
Wadsworth, G.


Erroll, Col. F. J.
Maude, J. C.
Walker-Smith, Lieut.-Col. D.


Fletcher, W. (Bury)
Medlicott, Brig. F.
Ward, Hon. G. R.


Foster, J. G. (Northwich)
Mellor, Sir J.
Wheatley, Lieut.-Col. M. J.


Fraser, Maj. H. C. P. (Stone)
Morris, R. H. (Carmarthen)
White, Maj. J. B. (Canterbury)


Gage, Lieut.-Col. C.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. W. S. (Cirencester)
Williams, C. (Torquay)


Gammans, Capt. L. D.
Mott-Radclyffe, Maj. C. E.
Williams, Lt.-Cdr. G. W. (T'nbr'ge)


Gates, Maj. E. E.
Neven-Spence, Major Sir B.
Winterton, Rt. Hon. Earl


George, Lady M. Lloyd (Anglesey)
Nield, B.
York, C.


Gridley, Sir A.
Noble, Comdr. A. H. P.
Young, Maj. Sir A. S. L. (Partick)


Grimston, R. V.
Orr-Ewing, I. L.



Harvey, Air-Cmdre. A. V.
Peake, Rt. Hon. O.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:—


Haughton, Maj. S. G
Peto, Brig. C. H. M.
Mr. Drewe and Commander Agnew.


Question put, and agreed to.

Ordered:

"That Mr. Attorney-General, Mr. Solicitor-General, the Lord Advocate and Mr. Solicitor-General for Scotland, being Members of this House, or any of them, though not Members of a Standing Committee, may take par): in the deliberations of the Committee, but shall not vote."

MEMBERS' EXPENSES

10.30 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): I beg to move,
That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the expenses incurred in connection with their parliamentary and official duties by Members of this Mouse, including Ministers whose salary is less than £5,000 per annum; their remuneration; and their conditions of work.
We shall all, I think, agree that democracy must be efficient, and if democracy is to be efficient, we must offer proper conditions of work to the elected representatives of the people, on both sides of the House, and I am sure this will not be treated as in any sense a party proposal. The Government are very anxious that a Select Committee should go carefully into this complicated matter to which hon. Members on the other side of the House will make, I am sure, a

valuable contribution. Although the Government cannot and do not commit themselves in advance to accept the recommendations which that Select Committee shall put forward, we shall certainly view any recommendations in which there will have been general agreement with careful and sympathetic consideration.
I do not think I need define this Motion at length. It follows precedents set in past times. In 1920 a Select Committee was set up with somewhat similar terms of reference to this, and it made various suggestions. Some were accepted by the Government of the day and some were not. In the new situation which has arisen there is very great pressure on hon. Members, much greater than in pre-war days, owing to the large number of constituency cases which have to be dealt with owing to personal problems of many kinds which come to all Members of the House, and we are hoping that the House will feel, with the Government, that this whole question should be looked at with fresh eyes. There are many matters which are proper to be considered by the Select Committee within these terms of reference. We have deliberately made the terms of reference very wide. We are


anxious not to exclude any relevant matter which may be thought to be of importance. It will be open for the Committee to consider whether salaries are at a proper level in view of the present conditions. It will be open to them to consider the relation of salaries paid to different junior Ministers with those paid to private Members of the House. It will be open to the Select Committee to consider the whole question of allowances, as distinct from salaries, to see if any further change should be made. It will be open to them to consider the whole question of postage and the extent to which there should be free postage for hon. Members in connexion with official duties; and it will be open to them to consider the whole question of travel by hon. Members on official duties. There is also the burning question of secretarial assistance and the facilities for making use of that assistance. We are conscious this is a serious problem, particularly in view of the tremendous growth of correspondence which comes to hon. Members in all parts of the House. That state of affairs is likely to continue.
I should like to emphasise the step which I have already announced to the House, and which the Government have taken, by making a declaration to remove any doubts which might previously have existed about free postage of communications sent by Members to Government Departments. On 6th November I announced on behalf of the Government that the practice whereby in the past Members have marked letters sent to Government Departments with the letters "O.H.M.S.," thereby avoiding the need to pay stamps on the letters, was perfectly proper. Many Members have followed this practice for a long time, though not quite universally, and some doubts existed of its legality—I should like to inform the House, and it is relevant at this stage to do so, that we have made arrangements following this declaration whereby supplies of officially franked O.H.M.S. envelopes will be available to Members without charge, which they may find it convenient to use in the House or to take away with them when they go to their constituencies. They will be able to obtain these very shortly. I have been urging the Stationery Office to accelerate their arrangements, and if the envelopes are not available tonight,

they will be in a day or two. Hon. Members may find this more convenient than marking the envelopes themselves.

Mr. Keeling: How is a Government Department to distinguish between an envelope marked by a Member of the House and one marked by a member of the public?

Mr. Dalton: By opening the letter to see who wrote it.

Mr. Keeling: What will they do then? Send in a bill?

Mr. Dalton: Members of the public are not entitled to write "O.H.M.S." on their correspondence, and postage can be recovered from such persons. But the answer to the hon. Gentleman is that the recipient will see who signed the letter, and if it is sent by an hon. Member it would be perfectly in order. I mention this by way of illustrating the way in which we propose to operate the statement I made on 6th November. As will be seen from the Motion which follows we are also proposing an immediate extension of free travel facilities for hon. Members, but all these matters are within the purview of the Select Committee; and I am quite confident, and the Government are confident, that the Select Committee will make a valuable contribution to the study of a very difficult problem.

Mr. Bowles: The right hon. Gentleman said that the travel with which he was dealing is referred to in the next Motion. It will be travel anywhere he is now speaking of?

Mr. Dalton: In the next Motion I am going to recommend a limited extension of free travel, but it will be within the competence of the Select Committee to see if further extensions are desirable. I would suggest that, although the practice in foreign countries, including the United States of America, is so different in many respects from our own, they may afford good examples to be copied; and that the Select Committee might, perhaps—it will be within their competence—find it worth while to compare the practice in this House with the practice of the Dominion Parliaments overseas. There are great similarities between our Parliament and those of various of the Dominions; and since the spirit is so similar, and the political climate is so similar, it may well be


that we would find certain things done by the Dominion Parliaments of interest to us, and possible of adaptation here. But I wish again to say that we leave the Select Committee with wide terms of reference, and I can assure the House that if it is appointed the Government intends that it shall do a very valuable service.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Osbert Peake: Although the hour is late, this is a matter of such importance to hon. Members that I do not think the House will grudge a few minutes spent upon discussing it. In fact, I think it may shorten our discussion if I say straight away that, although I do not speak for my party on this matter, because I do not think this is a party matter, I have consulted a good number of my hon. Friends upon these benches, and I shall be expressing the views of others besides myself. Before we part with this Motion, I hope someone on the Front Bench opposite will give us an assurance that when the report of the Select Committee has been made and the Government proposals on it have been formulated, and come before the House, there will be no Whips put on, so that every Member will be free to vote in accordance with his own beliefs on a matter on which he has to account not only to his constituents, but to his own conscience.
I have looked back over the history of these matters concerned with the payment of Members and with Members' travel facilities. Throughout, from the original payment in 1911 to the Select Committee of 1920, the proposals of 1921—some of which the House rejected—and the introduction of first-class travel in 1924 by the first Labour Government, on only one occasion were the Whips put on by the Government. That was on the original proposal for the payment of Members which Mr. Lloyd George made, I think, on 10th August, 1911. There was justification on that occasion for putting on the Whips, because the payment of Members was part and parcel of the election programme put before the country by Mr. Asquith in the second election of 1910. On this occasion there seems to be no such mandate. I hold in my hand a document entitled "Let us Face the Future; a Declaration of Labour Policy for the Consideration of the Nation." The electors of Britain, having given the Government a large and clear majority in this House,

they have an unchallengeable, popular mandate to carry out all that is contained in this document, on page 5 of which I find these words: "What will the Labour Party do?" I do not know if the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer recognises the quotation.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, I do. It is a quotation from a very good speech.

Mr. Peake: I would like to refer to page five, and in the paragraph headed, not without some significance, I think, with the words in large letters, "Jobs for all," I find no reference to the proposals which the right hon. Gentleman has just laid before the House unless, indeed, they can be included within the scope of these general words:
The policy of 'Jobs for All' must be associated with a policy of general economic expansion and efficiency.

Mr. George Porter: In view of the fact that the Leader of the Opposition has made a request that consideration should also be given to the junior Whips, will the right hon. Gentleman tell me—

Mr. Peake: I have not quite come to that point of my speech. I will deal with the question of junior Whips shortly. The question of payment of Members was raised in the dying days of the last Parliament by the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg), and, from the box opposite, I replied that that question and the question of increased facilities for Members seemed to me essentially questions for the new Parliament.
May I say a few words about each of the proposals which have been mooted in the public Press? First of all, one has this question of Members' salary, as it is called—but it is not salary in reality. I concede that there is a prima facie case for inquiry. It was in 1937 that Mr. Chamberlain, after consultations which Mr. Baldwin held with a good many Members in all parts of the House, decided to make the salary £600. If £600 was a fair and proper figure in 1937, it is clear that, with the increased cost of living, the greatly increased cost of postage, telephones and telegraphs, and so forth, there is a prima faciecase for inquiry at the present time as to whether some increase is not desirable. There are two divergent points of view on this


question. There is the point of view that we in this House should be remunerated according to what our services would, in our opinion, fetch in the outside market. I totally dissent from a view of that character. I am sure that what we ought to do is to aim at a salary which is rather a minimum upon which a Member can perform with decency the functions of a Member of Parliament.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: And dignity.

Mr. Peake: With decency and dignity. I dislike the idea of the professional politician, and I am confirmed in that statement by some observations which fell from the Leader of the House himself this afternoon. It would be a great pity if Members were to decide that they ought to be paid a salary as persons fulfilling a whole-time job and that a Member of Parliament ought to do no outside work. It is a great thing that Members should have outside interests. Some are professional men, some are trade union secretaries, some are even directors of public companies.
In passing, I may say I thought it a little unworthy of the Chancellor the other day to make even a genial sneer at my right hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Mr. Eden) for accepting a directorship of a bank; because, after all, it is some advantage to have first hand knowledge of some aspect of our national life; and as some of us on these benches may expect at a later date, after the next Election, to be sitting where right hon. Gentlemen now sit, and our experience has taught us that at the end of a period of Socialist Government the public finances are liable to be in a bit of a mess, how wise hon. Members on this side of the House would be to try to gain some practical experience in the meantime of the working of our financial system. At any rate when our roles are reversed and the right hon. Gentleman opposite returns to the London School of Economics as a lecturer, his lectures will be greatly improved by the practical experience he has gained here, and I shall not jeer and sneer at him.
May I say a word upon the question of payment in kind? I and a good many of my hon. Friends on this side very much dislike the idea of increased pay-

ment in kind, for two reasons. The first is—and it is not the most important, though it is one of some substance—that payments in kind are always liable to abuse unless they are hedged round with a number of safeguards which Members of this House would find exceedingly tiresome. Let me take two examples. On the question of secretarial assistance, how awfully difficult it is, when you sit down to dictate letters, to have to make up your own mind as you come to each letter whether it is a constituency case, a business letter, ordinary correspondence, or even a love letter.
On the question of free frankage for letters posted in the Palace of Westminster, here again, there would have to be careful safeguards laid down to see that abuses did not creep in. In the old days before the war I used to send out every year a few hundred Christmas cards to my principal supporters. If I had had free frankage I might have sent out a few thousands; and I might even have taken to sending out month by month from the Palace of Westminster what in effect would have amounted to an election address. That would be a wholly unfair advantage to take over my rival candidate who hoped at the next election to unseat me. Therefore, I say that payments in kind are liable to abuses unless carefully hedged round with safeguards. It is very much better, on grounds of public policy, that the public should know what Members of Parliament get and not imagine that they are getting all sorts of perquisites on the side. Therefore, I range myself strongly behind the idea that there should be a salary or expenses allowance, as at present, at possibly a somewhat higher figure, which each Member is free to spend as he thinks fit. A prima faciecase has been made out for it, and for that reason I shall not oppose its remittance to the Select Committee.
May I add a word with regard to the position of junior Ministers? I have been one for something like six years, and I think their position is exceedingly hard. Not only has he to give up on appointment all outside sources of income, any directorships he holds, or any journalism or profession in which he is engaged, but he also has to sacrifice his £600 a year as a Member of Parliament. He is given £1,500 a year in most of the offices or even


smaller sums in some of the Household posts which are paid from £1,000 to £800 a year, against which no allowances of any kind are permitted. The result is that he rinds himself, with taxation at its present level, very little better off financially, and, in some cases, even worse off, than the ordinary back bench Member. It is very hard for a man to be treated in this way when he becomes an Under-Secretary, usually in the prime of life. He has decided to give his services to the country, when he could probably be earning a very good income and putting something aside for his old age. He is giving up the best years of a. man's life. It has always seemed to me that the right solution of this problem is to give these Ministers the ordinary Back bencher's salary as well. I am sure that that is the right and fair thing to do. I have expressed these sentiments because I have discussed this matter with a good many of my hon. Friends on these benches, and I think it may be of some help to the Select Committee if they know at the outset what is, I think, the predominant, though by no means the universal, view on the Opposition side of the House.

10.59 p.m.

Earl Winterton: There is a point, which, I think, could certainly not be regarded as a hostile one, especially as I find myself in the rather unaccustomed role of non-controversialist. I want to call the attention of the Government to the statement in the Motion "including Ministers whose salary is less than £5,000 per annum." I do not understand, and we have had no explanation from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, why the salaries of Ministers with £5,000 have been excluded. The reason why I ask this is that it may well be that investigation may show that the gap between the total salary and allowances of the Minister with £5,000, and that of other Ministers and private Members was either too little or too great. I will further explain what I mean. It is a long time since there has been any rise in the salaries of the higher-up Ministers and the salary of £5,000 which is now fixed for those holding the more important posts was fixed in the days when it was true to say that the value of money was at least 50 per cent. more than it is now. Therefore,

why should consideration of the financial situation of those Ministers be excluded from the inquiries of this Select Committee? On the other hand, such investigation may show that the differences between the functions being performed by Ministers with a salary of £5,000 and those being performed by Ministers with salaries of £2,000 was not so great as to justify this great differentiation in the matter of salaries.
There is another point, a very delicate one. I do not want to offend anybody's susceptibilities, but there has grown up in recent years a custom in certain Departments—it applies only to some—where the Minister has the free use of a car which he can use for any purpose he likes; whereas in other Departments, in some of the lower-salaried Ministerial Departments, there is not such an advantage. I would suggest that the whole inquiry would be far more symmetrical if it took into account every range of salary paid to Ministers. I am ready to be converted to a different view, but I can see no logical reason for making the exclusion. If we are to have an investigation of this matter, what is the reason for not having a full investigation into the whole matter? I apologise to the House for making a speech when I am suffering from such hoarseness. May I assure the House, it is not due to the number of cups of tea I have drunk?

11.2 p.m.

Sir William Darling: I apologise for striking almost the only discordant note in this matter, but I am opposed to this Motion, because I think it unseemly and untimely. I have been in the House for four months, and I have been in the habit of collecting the election addresses of righthon. and hon. Members. I have an interesting collection. In none, and in none of their speeches, have I found any word of the suggestion that a right hon. or hon. Gentleman on his return to this House should, within six months of his return, approve setting up a Select Committee to discuss his emoluments. It would be very improper if one voice, at any rate, were not raised against what, I think, is an unseemly procedure. I know there are urgent difficulties, but I would remind the hon. Gentleman this is not a wartime Department, and we are not entitled to a


peacetime increase. We took on, with a full sense of our responsibilities, this task and this duty, and, while there may be some case for a Select Committee, it would be more seemly, and more in keeping with the habit of mind of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen, if we undertook to carry out our duty for at least a year before we examined whether we were worth more emoluments. I think this is a deplorable step. It is a step towards making us, more and more, hired servants of the Government, hired bravoes, hired and devoted and unchallenging servants of the Administration. It is a step we have seen in other countries, and it leads steadily to dictatorship and disaster.

Mr. E. P. Smith: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to the Members on these benches?

Sir W. Darling: I am referring to Members of the House of Commons who desire to support the Government's wish to have a Select Committee which is to raise our emoluments and if that step—

Mr. McKie: Is not the hon. Member aware that as, long ago as the 14th and 15th centuries, wages were paid to Members of the House irrespective of their leanings towards the Administration of the day?

Sir W. Darling: I am aware it has existed under previous Administrations, but that is no reason why we should not protest against something being offered to this House. I think hon. Members will agree that no part of the programme of the Government was left unexpounded or unexposed. We were told in unqualified language what they intended to do. This step was not included. It was not included in the election addresses of 121 Members of the House in my collection. It may have been in others. I think it is unseemly—I think it is indecent—that within five months we should have a proposal before us to set up a Committee to examine our salaries. I am proud of the fact that I am called an Honourable Member, but I would sooner be a poor and Honourable Member than submit to this.

11.6 p.m.

Mr. Dalton: With the permission of the House, I will deal with the two points which have been raised from the benches opposite, and ignore the last hon. Mem-

ber's lucubrations. The right hon. Member who spoke first on the other side asked if I would give an undertaking that any recommendations of the Select Committee would be considered with the Whips off, that is, on a free vote. I am not in a position to give a cast-iron pledge on this matter, which I did not know was going to be raised, but there is great force in his contention that matters of this kind should be decided by the House voting freely. On the other hand, it might be that the Select Committee would make a proposal of which the Government deeply disapproved and the right hon. Gentleman will not expect me to give a cast-iron pledge. Recognising the great force in his argument, we will certainly look into it and see whether, when the time comes—it will take some time to get these recommendations—it will not be a better way of dealing with it.
Regarding the remarks of the noble Lord the Member for Horsham (Earl Winterton), who proposed that we should not exclude from consideration of the Select Committee Ministers with salaries of £5,000 a year or more, the reason why these Ministers are excluded is that the House is initially interested in the private Members, who are by far the greatest number of those who are here in question. Our primary consideration is the private Member and not Ministers at all. On the other hand, the junior Ministers, as the phrase goes, are also obviously, as the right hon. Gentleman said, under certain disabilities in these matters, and we therefore thought it right to include them also. The question then arose how to define the junior Ministers. To have inserted in the Motion the phrase "junior Ministers" would be ambiguous and would be to use a term not known to the Constitution. It was therefore necessary to define these posts with precision by what seemed to us the best definition that we could put on the Paper—that is, Ministers with salaries less than £5,000 a year. Those who receive £5,000 do not ask for any consideration of improvement.

Earl Winterton: The point I put, which seemed to me to have support in all parts of the House, was that I hoped the Government would not exclude some future consideration of this question. I do not think any Government need be afraid if a good case is made for increasing the salaries of Ministers.

Mr. Dalton: As we go forward many new matters may arise for consideration. Primarily, we are here interested in the private Member. We are interested only secondly in the position of the junior Ministers, and the Government wish these two matters to be considered. They do not consider that there is any strong case for considering the situation of those receiving salaries of £5,000 a year. Later on any new matter might be considered, but it would be a great pity to push the question of Ministerial salaries into the forefront of this discussion. In the forefront should be the condition of the vast majority of Members of the House who are not members of the Government. In view of what I have said, and of the friendly way in which what I have said has been received, I hope the House will agree to a Select Committee being appointed, not to recommend increases, but to consider the whole question.

Mr. Sydney Silverman: While recognising that there is considerable force in the view expressed on the other side of the House, that any ultimate proposals might be decided by the House without the Whips, will my right hon. Friend, in considering that proposal, remember also that there is considerable weight in the view that when the Committee have reported and the Government have considered their report, there may be good reason for the Government taking responsibility for whatever is then decided, and that any other course might be a source of considerable mischief and embarrassment to many private Members?

Mr. Dalton: We will look into that.

Resolved:

"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the expenses incurred in connection with their parliamentary and official duties by Members of this House, including Ministers whose salary is less than £5,000 per annum; their remuneration; and their conditions of work."

MEMBERS (TRAVELLING FACILITIES)

11.10 p.m.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Dalton): I beg to move,
That in the opinion of this House the facilities now available to a Member of this House travelling on parliamentary duties between London and his constituency should be

extended so as to provide facilities for free travel on such duties by any public railway, sea or air service, between—
(a) London and his constituency;
(b) London and such one other place outside his constituency as may have been notified by him to the Fees Office as being his ordinary residence; and
(c) his constituency and such one other place as aforesaid."
I hope we may get this second Motion without much discussion, because I think it is generally recognised as being reasonable. The Select Committee will have a wide range of freedom in discussing matters including the question of travel, but it seems to the Government that we should take this immediate step which I am asking the House to approve in this Motion because I think it is non-controversial and does redress many grave inequities between different sections of the House. Some Members of the House live in London. Other Members live in their constituencies; these enjoy facilities of free travel between London and their homes, but those Members—and there are many of them—who live neither in London, nor in their constituencies, have to incur considerable expenses which do not fall on the other sections. The purpose of this Motion is to equalise the matter as between the two sections and to enable facilities for free travel to apply to each of the legs of the triangle—home, constituency, London. I do not think I need elaborate the Motion, beyond saying that an extension was considered as long ago as 1921 and defeated by a very narrow margin when commended to the House by the late Sir Austin Chamberlain, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He considered that some extension was reasonable, but by a narrow vote was not able to carry his proposition.
The Government think that the time has come to apply free travel on a fair and intelligent basis and also to add facility for free travel by air when air facilities are available, including free travel from the airport nearest either to the Members constituency, or his home; free travel by rail, from the airport to the point where normally, the hon. Member would alight when proceeding other than by air. Since the early days, air travel has considerably developed and on the ground of saving time it is of such importance to all of us in these crowded days, particularly to those who live in the North of Scotland or in Northern


Ireland. I think it will assist Members if they are able to get in an hour or two by air a distance which by rail would involve a night in the train. I hope it will be accepted as reasonable, and I hope the House will be prepared to accept this Resolution.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Peake: Here again I have consulted many of my hon. Friends on this side of the House and, although I cannot speak for a party in this matter, we do assent, those of my hon. friends whom I have consulted, to this proposition. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it was proposed by a Select Committee 24 years ago, accepted by the Government of the day and defeated on a very narrow vote and when travel was brought in by the first Labour Government it was limited to travel between London and the constituency. That is, as the right hon. Gentleman said, a very tiresome restriction on hon. Members. It prevents their travelling on another main line to a station perhaps 20 miles from their constituency and I fully agree that this rather limited extension of travel facilities is fully justified.

11.16 p.m.

Major Sir Basil Neven-Spence: While welcoming very warmly what has been said about air travel, I would like to point out to the right hon. Gentleman that what he has said does not quite meet the case of all of us and certainly not my own case, as the Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland. It so happens that my home is in the extreme North of Shetland, which involves me in a much longer journey than any other hon. Member has to undertake. The right hon. Gentleman said that rail travel would be allowed from the airport near the Member's home. But unfortunately, there are no railways in Shetland, and in fact I have a very long journey to make, involving the hiring of three motorcars and three motor boats. Now the cost of that journey is about £10. I feel that it would be a great injustice if I were left to pay a sum like that, when other Members are getting free travel facilities. It may be that there are one or two other cases like that, and I would be perfectly satisfied if the right hon. Gentleman would assure me that special cases of this kind could be considered by the Select Committee.

Mr. Dalton: Yes, certainly.

11.17 p.m.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden: I do not wish to raise any point by way of obstruction. Rather do I wish to ask for information, on a point which has been puzzling me and quite a number of my hon. Friends who have homes within 20 or 25 miles of this House, and have constituencies elsewhere. We have no complaint whatever, for we enjoy free travel now and shall continue so to do. We are being granted a facility which means that, wherever our responsibilities may be, we shall enjoy further free travel facilities. But when I inquired at the Fees Office as to how this was going to operate, I was told that each day I shall have to present at the booking office a travel warrant, cluttering up the booking office, as many other people are doing with forms. It means five forms for five days. In addition, I find that at the Fee? Office already arrangements are being made to take on extra staff to deal with the accumulation of forms which will have to be docketed and filed and checked day by day. I cannot understand where we have got to if this is going to be the case.
This is not an imaginary situation; these are the facts and I put it to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that there is a simplification which could easily be applied. I travel with busmen, with Underground workers and with all types of person included among average Londoners; they each exhibit something to show they are entitled to be there anyway, and nobody bothers. Everyone recognises the ordinary pass. The Chancellor may say that he cannot go as far as that at the present time. May I put an alternative? If he will say that the travel warrant shall be like the ordinary, average shop assistant's weekly season ticket, instead of asking us to clutter up the Fees Office and everywhere else with forms that would simplify matters to a reasonable extent, it will certainly make matters cheaper for the nation and save quite a lot of time.

11.20 p.m.

Mr. McKie: I do not want to delay the proceedings more than a minute or two, but I want to put a point somewhat similar to that put by the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland (Major Sir B. Neven-Spence)


though by no means wholly identical. Of course, I welcome this whole idea of the extension of railway travel. But I want to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go a small step further, and to consider the question of providing increased facilities for travel within Members' constituencies. There are not many Members who have such large constituencies that personal expenditure on railway travel in them is a very large item in their personal expenditure. I am sorry I did not confess at the beginning, but I confess it now, that I have a personal interest in this matter, as has the hon. and gallant Member for Orkney and Shetland. But when we are speaking in this House on a matter like this we are not dealing only with ourselves, but are thinking—and ought to be thinking—of those who will come after us. So I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider this matter, which must affect not a few Members for the county constituences of Scotland, and perhaps a few in England as well. For instance, my constituency is a very big one indeed, some 1,600 or 1,700 square miles, as large as some of the larger islands in the Mediterranean. I frequently had to travel during the war when I could not run my car because of the petrol restrictions and the not too generous provisions of the Fees Office in regard to petrol. I had to travel to keep in normal touch with my constituents in various parts a journey of 80 miles at a cost of 18s. or 20s. A journey like that once a month or once in three weeks would mean spending £12 or £18 per annum. I am seriously asking the Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider a matter like this. The hon. Member for the Western Isles (Mr. M. MacMillan) I am confident would support this. I ask the Chancellor to consider whether in large constituencies some provision could be made for those who have to take railway journeys on perfectly legitimate duties—not political but Parliamentary duties; whether some reasonable facilities might be extended whereby they could have free railway travel provided to the nearest railway station to their homes.

11.23 a.m.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: I think the pleas of both the last two speakers are very reasonable. I have risen only for the purpose of ask-

ing the right hon. Gentleman when the scheme will come into force. I observe from the terms of the Motion that it is an expression of opinion of the House. Presumably it will be mandatory on somebody to do something. I suppose there will follow a Treasury Minute or some order?

11.24 a.m.

Mr. Gallacher: I wish to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer about a point I raised before. From Glasgow, to my constituency, it is 12s. or 14s. by the train, and it is 4s. 6d. by the bus, and it is much more convenient to go by the bus than by the train. Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer consider that? It would be a big saving to the Exchequer in my case, and perhaps in many others.

11.25 p.m.

Mr. Dalton: Perhaps I may be permitted to answer the questions that have been put. The Noble Lord the Member for South Dorset (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) asked when this would operate. The authorities of the House have been considering the matter in consultation with the Treasury, and we are hopeful that the new scheme will become effective on the first Monday in December, which is 3rd December. With regard to the administrative details, the Noble Lord is quite correct. We have worked upon this and if the House approves tonight, I would prefer to circulate in the Official Report the administrative arrangements we propose and I hope the House will accept this Motion without seeking, at this stage, to broaden or extend it in order to cover either hon. Members' air journeys or journeys by air-sea services beyond those already allowed. Hon. Members who represent constituencies like the Orkney and Shetland and islands off the mainland are permitted, under the terms of this Motion, free travel on any such journeys by any public rail, air or sea services. If they are not public services I am afraid they are not covered by this Motion.

Sir B. Neven-Spence: There is no public service which can be used at the weekends.

Mr. Dalton: I am sorry, but in that case it is just too bad.

Sir B. Neven-Spence: I asked if that would be considered by the Select Committee.

Mr. Dalton: The short answer is that everything can be considered by the Select Committee. What I am seeking to do is to anticipate this particular matter, because I think we might all agree upon it. Within these broad terms I think there will be agreement. There are all sorts of minor points, including that raised by the hon. Member for Doncaster (Mr. Walkden). The Select Committee will look at all of them. What I am asking the House to do is to pass this Motion tonight.

Captain Gammans: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that when an Order refers to a Member's home it ought to specify that the home must be in Great Britain; otherwise a Member may come along and say his home is in Canada or Moscow, or somewhere else.

Mr. Keeling: Free sleepers are already provided between London and constituencies. Are they to be provided also between London and residence and between constituency and residence?

Mr. Dalton: That depends on railway facilities, and we must not ask too much of the railways at the moment.

Mr. Keeling: Are sleepers to be provided free to the Member's place of residence or not?

Mr. Dalton: We are in danger, I think, of trying to deal, on this Motion, with all sorts of individual points. If it is the wish of the House I will continue to answer these questions but I think it would be to the general advantage to let these matters pass now, and for Members who have matters which they wish considered, to make representations to the Select Committee. Nothing in the new concessions implies the provision of any special priority for Members. For example, in the reservation of berths. Members should not expect any better treatment in this respect than they are getting at the moment—the same treatment but not better.

Mr. Keeling: The Chancellor has misunderstood my point. Does free travel cover sleepers in paragraphs (b) and (c) of his Motion in addition to paragraph (a) as at present?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, provided sleepers are available, but the hon. Members must not expect priority over the rest of the community.

Sir William Darling: Has the right hon. Gentleman formed any opinion on the cost of these concessions to the public?

Mr. Dalton: Yes, Sir. At the outside some £20,000 in the first year—and probably less.

Resolved:
That in the opinion of this House the facilities now available to a Member of this House travelling on Parliamentary duties between London and his constituency should be extended so as to provide facilities for free travel on such duties by any public railway, sea or air service, between—
(a) London and his constituency;
(b) London and such one other place out side his constituency as may have been notified by him to the Fees Office as being his ordinary residence; and
(c) his constituency and such one other place as aforesaid.

Following is the Statement referred to by the CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER:

Arrangements for travel on Parliamentary duties by rail, sea or air, by Members of Parliament.

1. The extension of free travel facilities for rail, sea or air journeys between home and both London and constituency involves no other change in the general conditions governing the use of warrants.
2. Members who do not live in their constituencies will be asked to notify the Fees Office of the address of their ordinary residence and also the rail, sea and air services which they desire to use there from to both constituency and London. All Members desirous of using air travel between London and constituency will be asked to notify the Fees Office which scheduled air service they wish to use.
3. The rail station or airport to be used in relation to the ordinary residence will be that nearest to the residence, on the route to either the constituency or London.
4. A new warrant form will be used for the rail and sea journey between home and constituency. Arrangements are being made for the use of the existing


warrant for the journey between London and either home or constituency.
5. As regards air travel, the existing warrant will continue to be used for both air and rail/air journeys—the latter being Journeys party by air and partly by rail—but arrangements will be made for this warrant to be accepted by the air companies and booking offices without payment by the Member. The cover of the book of air warrants will be suitably amended.
6. Particulars of the relevant scheduled air services and airports which may be used will continue to be shown on the cover of the air warrant book, for the convenience of Members. It will no longer be necessary for the Member to fill in the fares on the warrant.
7. Supplementary tickets for sleepers, etc., where available, may be obtained for use on journeys to and from the Member's home.

8. In the event of a Member removing from his declared ordinary residence he should notify the Fees Office immediately, so that revised journeys may be agreed.

PURCHASE TAX (PLASTIC ARTICLES)

Resolved:

"That the Purchase Tax (Alteration of Rates) (No. 5) Order, 1945 (S.R. & O., 1945, No. 1314), dated 23rd October 1945, made by the Treasury under the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1940, a copy of which Order was presented on 30th October, he approved."—[Mr. Dalton.]

ADJOURNMENT.

Resolved: "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Mathers.]

Adjourned accordingly at half past Eleven o'clock.